


that gay teacher klance fic (to be changed when inspiration strikes)

by Themaagoo



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Don't get me wrong, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Gay, I don't think I've ever written a single angst less fit in my life, M/M, Teacher AU, Trans Pidge, but like, conspiracy theorist keith, its super fluff, klance, like there will be angst, not major angst, think more sergeant angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-01-06 07:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12206817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themaagoo/pseuds/Themaagoo
Summary: "Do aliens exist too?" There's a laugh in Lance's voice now, as if he's having fun with this conversation."It's just conceited to think that we're the only life in the universe.""But thinking it must be spying on us isn't?""Then why does NASA keep cutting off their live feeds whenever ufos show up, and what is that thing orbiting earth, the one we didn't send up there.""You mean the moon?""No, but the moon's probably populated by aliens anyway.""And let me guess, Harry from one direction is secretly a duck?""That one is just ridiculous."---Keith and Lance are both teachers at Voltron secondary school, and they hate each other. definitely. probably.whatever happens, I can promise you it's gonna be hella gay





	1. I never planned on you

**Author's Note:**

> so I was going to get this all written and then post it gradually, but I was far too excited for that, and I crave feeeback. sorry.  
> /edit: not sorry/

"Lance, have you ever considered just asking him out on a date," Hunk looks up from marking a student's work to give Lance the look™. Lance flushes.

"Because, I've told you, I don't like him like that!" Lance practically screeches.

"Really? Because the first time you saw him I distinctly remember you telling me he had the best ass you'd ever seen."

"And I stick to that statement, but it doesn't make him any less of an unsufferable quiznak."

"That's not a real word."

"As far as my nieces and nephews are concerned it is."

"Whatever, I'm just saying that this isn't necessarily your best seducing tactic."

"I AM NOT TRYING TO SEDUCE HIM!"

Several heads in the staff room turn to look at them. Hunk smiles and waves apologetically at them before turning to Lance who has gone a bright pink at is stabbing at some food on his plate.

"Okay, okay, so let's say you're not into him."

"I'm not."

"Antagonising him still might not be your best option, isn't he like the headmaster's younger brother or something?"

"A, I'm not  _antagonising_ him. B, Shiro loves me, he'd never fire me over something like this."

"Right, you just challenged his brother to a duel."

"He agreed to it!"

"Doesn't make it any less ridiculous."

"This is a perfect way to prove that I am better than him once and for all."

"He has the top form, there's no way you can pull your classes scores up to match theirs."

"Are you doubting your students Hunk?"

"Yes, no offence, but I have met your class. One of them was convinced that they could run faster than light."

"Klaizap just needs a little extra help that's all."

"What are even the stakes in this competition?"

"The loser has to sing at the leavers assembly" 

"Yeah, it might be best to call this off while you still can."

" _I am not wimping out!"_

"Your funeral," Hunk sighs. "Anyway, isn't your class about to start?" Lance glances up at the clock.

"Oh shit, it is! See ya!" Lance dashes out of the room, slowing down with a mumbled apology as someone shouts at him in the background.

Hunk shakes his head and sighs, getting back to marking the pile of work in front of him.

 

 

 

"Come on Pidge, it's like you're not even trying to fail this class!" Lance throws his hands in the air as Pidge executes another scene perfectly.

"That would be because I'm not." Pidge rolls her eyes. "You better not mark me down just because of this stupid feud you have going with Keith."

"It's not like you even care about Drama," Lance pouts. "You're gonna become an engineer or something."

" _Lance._ "

Lance raises his hands in defeat. "Chill there Gunderson, it's not like I'd ever actually lower your grade because of this bet. That would break the rules of the agreement."

"It's nice to know that it's only because of that rule. You're an upstanding teacher Lance."

Lance ignores Pidge and calls up the next student. An A star it is for Pidge then. And not just because Pidge scares him. Which she does. 

Lance's classes pass without much else of interest happening, he assigns all of his year elevens their projects, (a short movie based on one of their interests) loses horribly to Hunk in a game of online scrabble while the students are busy with their activities, [stupid game won't accept fergalicious as a word] and almost falls asleep in his year seven class. All in all a pretty standard day. Until the clock hits four o'clock and right on time the heavens part and chuck it down. Fuck this morning him who thought it would be a good idea to start biking to work.

Lance sighs. There’s no way he can bike home in this without breaking his neck, and that isn't how Lance wants to die. Lance is going to die doing something cool, like fighting a ninja. Or because he pisses off the wrong person and they hire an assassin to kill him. There can be no in-between. 

So once half an hour has passed and it's still raining Lance bites the bullet and walks down to the bus stop. What he isn't expecting is for keith to be taking that same bus. And leaving at the same time. Fuck fate. Fate has always had it out for Lance for one reason or another.

The bus stop, thankfully, isn't far away. The bus on the other hand is super fucking late. 

As they arrive at the bus stop Keith turns to Lance. 

"Look, you sit on one end of the bus, I'll sit on the other, and we'll be far, far away from each other. Very far away." 

Lance doesn't bother replying, instead choosing to glare out angrily at the road, not so silently cursing whatever gods were responsible for the weather.

 

 

 

Lance hasn't said a word yet. Well not to Keith anyway. He has made plenty of comments to himself in the past ten minutes. Enough so that Keith has more or less learnt to block it out. Until...

"Why do you have a Mothman umbrella?" Lance's voice breaks the silence.

"What?" Keith turns to Lance, confused.  _Is he talking to me?_

"Your umbrella, it has mothman on it," Lance scrunches his face into a squint

"Solid observational skills."

"Why?"

"Because I got it from the Mothman museum."

"Why were you at the Mothman museum?" 

"To learn about Mothman."

"Why do you want to learn about it?"

"Because it's interesting. "

"Let me guess, you also think the moon landing was faked." Lance rolls his eyes as he says it, fixing Keith with a "this is the most ridiculous thing I've heard all day and I work at a high school" stare. It's a very specific stare, and Keith isn't entirely sure how he manages to pull it off, but he does.

In return Keith shoots back a much simpler "Well obviously" stare.

"Do aliens exist too?" There's a laugh in Lance's voice now, as if he's having fun with this conversation.

"It's just conceited to think that we're the only life in the universe."

"But thinking it must be spying on us isn't?"

"Then why does NASA keep cutting off their live feeds whenever ufos show up, and what is that thing orbiting earth, the one we didn't send up there."

"You mean the moon?"

"No, but the moon's probably populated by aliens anyway."

"And let me guess, Harry from one direction is secretly a duck?"

"That one is just ridiculous."

They banter back and forth like that until the bus arrives, and keith cant help but breath a sigh of relief. No matter how cute Lance may be, he is most definitely not someone Keith wanted to spend half an hour stuck at a bus stop with. As the bus opens it's doors Keith doesn't even bother saying goodbye to lance as he practically leaps on board. As he hears Lance step on behind him he remembers.  _Oh yeah, he's getting this bus too_. 

Ignoring Lance for now he shows the bus driver his pass and walks off o find a seat. He doesn't get far. The entire bus is crammed, and even if keith was okay with sitting next to a stranger the only spaces left are the standing ones. Thankfully by some miracle there are a couple of free ones at the edge. So at least he can be in a corner and have some room to breath. Or at least that’s his plan. The universe however has other plans for Keith. Minutes later Lance squeezes in next to Keith. 

Keith shoots him an "I thought we had an agreement" look and in return Lance gestures at the full bus behind them. 

"Better budge up kiddo," Lance says, as if Keith isn't already folding himself into the corner as tightly as possible.

"I'm older than you," Keith hisses at lance as he pulls his jacket around himself as tightly as it will go. It isn't very far.

"Really, but you're so short?" Lance raises his eyebrows in surprise and keith cant tell if it's genuine or if lance is just mocking him. He decides he's probably making fun of him and meets his gaze with a well-practiced scowl.

"There is an inch between us at most," he grumbles, furrowing his eyebrows further.

Lance straightens up. "I think you meant at least." With keith slouched as much as he was it made quite the difference.  _Fuck it._ /keith stands up as straight as he can without falling over on the bus. 

"See, there is not that much difference," Keith smiles smugly as he says it, folding his arms triumphantly. 

Lance rolls his eyes, "I don't think tip- WHOAH!" The bus brakes sharply and they both stumble. On one hand Keith is a PE teacher and has been taking the bus for a while, so he shoots out his arms for balance and plants his feet firmly on the ground and aside from a small stumble manages to stay upright. Lance on the other hand is less practiced in the art of not falling over on moving buses. His legs slip out from under him and he stumbles forward into Keith, whose arms are now wide open. He looks up into Keith's face. 

"Well, fancy meeting you here," Lance quips. Keith turns red and drops Lance onto the floor. Lance yelps in surprise as he hits the ground and several people turn to look. Some of them look concerned, others laugh and a few tut, shake their heads and look away. Lance turns red as he dusts himself off and gets up, scowling at the people who laughed at him. Keith smirks at him. 

"Whatever," Lance smoothes his hair down and then resumes his previous position next to Keith. "Why are you taking the bus anyway, you clearly don't like people."

Keith just shrugs. "Shiro doesn't like it when I bring my motorbike to school."

"You have a motorbike!?" Lance's eyes have gone wide, and _fuck_ is it adorable. Keith sinks deeper into his jacket in an effort to hide the blush he knows is creeping onto his face.

"Um, yeah?" it's a lame response and Keith knows it, but apparently the mere proximity of Lance frazzles his brain enough that it can't supply anything else. He can only hope that Lance doesn't pick up on it.

"Dude that's  _awesome!"_  Lance's eyes are still wide with excitement and wonder and Keith can't tell if he's making fun of him or not. He seems sincere... Keith sighs and decides to roll with it. They talk about motorcycles for a while, a ten minute conversation in which Keith deduces that Lance knows nothing about them other than what he's seen on TV. Some of the 'facts' that he threw at Lance may have been less than true, but Lance had proclaimed himself his rival right? Anything he did to provoke him was really just fulfilling Lances wishes. Also maybe he was having just a little bit too much fun with this. Really it was lance's fault for being so adorable when he got excited, and for being so damn gullible. 

Eventually Lance glances out of the window and freezes. "Shit, shit shit shit," he curses loudly and a few parents shoot him dirty looks.

"What's up? Keith takes this opportunity to look at lance, who is too busy raking his fingers through his hair to notice him staring. Even stressed out Lance is fucking beautiful.

"I missed my stop, as if my home isn't far enough from the bus stop already," he grumbles. "I'm going to get quiznaking soaked."

Keith doesn't bother asking what quiznaking means. Instead his body acts before he can think about things too much. As Lance makes his move to get off of the bus Keith sticks out his umbrella.

"Keith, I'm flattered, I really am, unless of course this a plot to get me even wetter, in which case fuck you, but I need to get off of this bus." Lance turns to Keith with one eyebrow raised as he speaks.

Keith rolls his eyes and he can feel himself flushing, but he's determined not to wimp out now. "Borrow my umbrella, I live close to the bus stop anyway." Keith doesn't meet Lance's eyes, staring stubbornly at the tip of the umbrella as he speaks. Lance's eyes widen slightly, and he fumbles over his words. Keith braves a sneaky glance at Lance out of the corner of his eye. He looks flustered, blushing red slightly and eyes darting all over the place. Keith feels a little bit less embarrassed about his own face, which he's sure must be flaring red. 

"Erm, thanks," Lance finally manages to stutter out as the bus pulls to a halt. He takes the umbrella and for the slightest moment their fingers brush. Keith can't help but notice how soft Lance's hands are. 

"Whatever, just don't forget to return it." Keith drops his hand and stares at the ground, sinking back into the wall. Once Lance is safely off of the bus Keith sneaks a peak out of the window. Lance has tied his jacket around his waist now that he has the umbrella, and keith doesn't blame him, despite the rain it's still a warm day, but _damn_ does it look good on him and that is not something Keith was prepared for. Just as he can feel the blush creeping up Lance turns, looks at him, smiles innocently and waves slightly before turning away. Keith feels like he might be on fire.

 

 

 

It's already six o'clock by the time Keith gets home, and he is so not in the mood to socialise anymore. It's Lance's fault really. Somehow he always manages to max out Keith's allotted socialising energy, even when he’s being civil apparently. It’s probably because he never plans on lance, and lance certainly didn't seem to care for Keith's carefully planned day and social interactions. He always manages to use up all of the energy he had put aside for random encounters and then some. It's a skill the guy seems to have perfected somehow. Shiro however doesn't seem to have gotten the memo.

"So how was your day?" Shiro practically chirps. Keith narrows his eyes. Why is his brother in such a good mood? It's uncharacteristic of him to say the least, especially after such a long day of work. Normally his mood on a Monday night was more "I wish for death to come quickly". 

"What clone did they replace you with?" He grumbles, collapsing onto the sofa as he does so. As a result the end of the sentence is rather garbled due the cushion he face plants into. 

"None, I'm just in a good mood." Shiro is bouncing on the balls of his toes as he speaks now, and Keith turns his face to look at him, snorting disbelievingly as he does so.

"Yeah right, and I'm the queen of England," he replies, layering his voice thick with sarcasm. There's something going on with Shiro, but he's too lazy to figure it out right now

"Okay your highness, so whats gotten you to be such a royal pain in the ass grumpy guts?" Shiro grins at Keith, not caring that keith clearly does not want to have this conversation. Sometimes Keith really hates his older brother.

"Nothing," Keith mumbles, turning his face back into the pillow he's now hugging.

"Is this about the motorbike? Because even if I did let you bring it to the school, it would have been dangerous to ride it out in this weather anyway." Shiro's voice is gently chastising, and Keith has to bite down the urge to tell him that actually he would be just fine on his bike and that he's been out in worse weather than this. Okay maybe Shiro doesn't need to know that last part. 

"It is not about the motorbike Shiro."

"M’kay, if you say so," Shiro backs off the subject, letting Keith brood on it. "Also are you helping out with the school trip coming up?" Shiro waves a piece of paper in Keith's face. Keith snatches it out of the air and looks at it, it's a sign up form for what teachers would be assigned to what. He considered it briefly, a day out would be nice, even if he did have to deal with a bunch of hyper active teenagers being let loose. Not that that would be much different to his usual day.

"Sure," he says. Keith, a creature of habit, scans the collums of names to check which one has the least teachers listed, and scrawls his name at the bottom without checking the names already listed. He holds it out for Shiro to take again. Shiro looks at the paper, quirks an eyebrow up and gives Keith an odd look. "You sure?"

Keith waves Shiro of with a "Yeah, yeah, yeah," and grabs at a book, hoping that Shiro will at last leave. It works, and Shiro exits the room. Keith breathes a sigh of relief, it isn't that he doesn't love Shiro, he does, he just doesn't want to spend time with anyone at the moment. What he needs right now is some  _him_  time. Keith takes his book and trudges up to his room. Maybe he'll work on his wall for a while before dinner. He doesn't, instead he scrolls through online forums for a while, but he doesn't find anything interesting or new. Eventually he hears Shiro shout his name from downstairs. He shoots out of his room, hoping food might be done, not because he's particularly hungry, more for something to do than anything else. To his surprise when he looks out over the stairs he sees Shiro pulling on a pair of suspiciously shiny looking shoes.

"Hey, there you are! Um, im going to meet up with someone to discuss some school stuff, but ive left some money on the table in case you want to get ay food, keep the change." Shiro looks somewhat flustered as he speaks and Keith narrows his eyes.

"Are you meeting up with that English teacher, allura?" Suddenly the joyous buzz Shiro has had going for the past hour or so makes sense.

Keith swears he sees Shiro blush.

"Erm, yeah. For school stuff," Shiro defends lamely.

"Riiiight," Keith doesn't say anything else, but leans against the wall and smirks in the way he knows will get Shiro the most defensive.

Shiro bumbles around with excuses for a while longer and then stumbles out of the door. Keith smiles fondly and shakes his head. Once alone Keith heads back up to his room, he can't be bothered to deal with sorting food yet so he just adds the money Shiro left him to his "Shiro left me alone in the house without warning or food and this is compensation" jar and lies down on his bed. He's not got much to do, so he just grabs the book he was reading earlier and tries to get back into it. No luck. He rolls onto his back and groans, maybe he just needs to sleep. Ten minutes later he's changed position a couple dozen times, redone the bed twice and had no less than five weird spasms of energy. He sits up sighing. Sleep definitely isn't an option.

Keith tries pacing around the room next, to hopefully burn off some of that excess energy and get his thoughts together. After five minutes he's stubbed his toe three times on several stray objects and his feet are no longer up for this, so he leaves his room and heads down the stairs. He finds finds himself in the garage, and he glances outside. It's cleared up a bit, and while the roads are still wet from the rain, it's not like Shiro is here to nag at him about safety. Keith heads over to his motorbike and straps on a helmet [he's reckless, not an idiot] he puts in earphones and lets his music play on all songs. A rare treat he rarely indulges himself in, as some of the songs on keith's ipod are... not exactly his usual style. 

 _Do you wanna ride, do you wanna ride..._  the music is just a little too loud in his ears, but he knows that soon most of it will be drowned out by his bike. Keith lets himself settle into the seat, revs the engine a couple of times, and then he's off. He's out of the garage and flying through the streets.

Keith lives in a pretty isolated area, which Shiro always says makes him feel like he’s going to end up in the first five minutes of a horror movie, but Keith likes it. It’s quiet out here, he can be alone. He can race through the back roads at speeds which on a normal road would have a less experienced motorcyclist crash into every car there. He feels the wind tearing at him, and allows himself a small grin. This is his element. The open road, nothing to stop him, nothing to trap him. In these moments he could go anywhere, be anyone, and no one could stop him. He lets himself take a moment to think about everything that happened today; Lance, school... Lance. Keith sighs, breathes in, and then lets it out, all of it. Thoughts have n place on his motorbike, here everything is gone, just him on the open road. No distractions. Just him, his bike and his music. 

_They see you as small and helpless..._


	2. I suspect Pidge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, so this is sooner than I was expecting to post a chapter, but I finally finished it so I didn't see any point in waiting, still most likely gonna be another month at least until the next one, most likely longer because nanowrimo is coming up however (Sorry about that) in the meantime this one is pretty long and filled with high-key gay content

"Hey Lance?" Lance looks back to see Hunk jogging up to him.

"Yeah buddy?"

"What's with the umbrella?" Hunk gestures at the sky, there's not a cloud in sight.

"Well yesterday I thought it wouldn't rain either," Lance defends.

"Why not put it in your bag though? It's not as if there's no room." Lance looks down,  Hunk has a point

"Erm, well it's not mine, I don't want to damage it," Lance mumbles, looking steadily at the ground.

Hunk looks at Lance, ducking his head so he can see him better "Lance, buddy, are you blushing?"

"No..." Lance tries to turn his head away from Hunk so he can't see him, but his friend is persistent if nothing else.

"Who did you get the umbrella from?" Lance blushes deeper, but doesn't answer.

"Laaance..." Ugh, Hunk is giving him The Look™ again.

"It's not important Hunk, just forget it." Lance still doesn't meet Hunk's eye, but thankfully he drops the subject. Lance isn't sure why he's getting so agitated over this, but he doesn't care to dwell on it for any longer.

"So how's your bet going with Keith?" Hunk asks instead, and Lance almost tells him that he told him to drop it, but then he realises that as far as Hunk is concerned he has.

"It's erm, it's going fine," Lance stutters eventually, flustered from his almost trip up.

"You're losing horribly aren't you." It's not a question.

"The class just needs some motivation, that's all."

"Lance, I'm not sure that's such a great idea."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Last time you tried to 'motivate' your class, you promised them you'd get a tattoo on your ass of their choosing."

"Yes, well they almost won that sports festival didn't they?"

"You should just consider yourself lucky that they _didn't_ win."

"It's going to be _just fine!_ "

Hunk gives Lance a look implying that he most certainly does not think it's going to be 'just fine'.

"Ye of little faith!" Lance gasps, clutching one hand over his heart.

"Laaaance..."

"NOPE, NOPE NOPE NOPE!" Lance looks away from Hunk, shielding his eyes stubbornly. "You cannot get all disapproving father on me with The Look™ Hunk, you're supposed to be my friend."

Hunk is giving him The Look™ again, he can just feel it.

"The only person allowed to do that is Shiro, I am banning you from using The Look™."

"So if Shiro tells you it's a stupid idea you'll stop?"

" _Shiro_ will be happy my students are doing so well."

Hunk throws his hands up in the air in exasperation. "Fine, but when you end up with a tattoo of a penis on your face don't say I didn't tell you so."

Lance rolls his eyes, Hunk worries too much. Still, he can feel an awkward silence settling in, so he changes the subject to something else. Five minutes in Lance isn't even really sure what he's talking about anymore.

Eventually Hunk interrupts him "well, while this was a truly fascinating conversation on philosophy, I really must go," Hunk excuses. "My first class is in an hour and if I'm being perfectly honest I haven't even decided what I'm teaching yet."

"I can't believe you're abandoning me," Lance sighs dramatically and holds up one hand to his forehead as if about to faint.

This time Hunk rolls his eyes. "See ya later Laance."

Hunk walks off into the building and Lance is left on his own. Hunk is right about how soon class starts, but he has something to do before he can get to his own form so he picks up his pace and heads down to the P.E. area.

When he gets there he takes a deep breath and knocks on the door. No answer. He tries again. Still nothing. Keith might have his earphones in. he likes to listen to music before form sometimes. Lance shakes his head. _Why do I know that?_

Sighing Lance sticks his head around the door. Keith isn't in there. _Odd._ Form is going to start in.. Lance looks at his watch, ten minutes. He should really be here. Then Lance remembers that form is starting in ten minutes and kicks his ass into gear. Stepping into the room Lance goes behind the desk and puts Keith's umbrella down. _There, all done_. Now Lance can go back to his form and go back to hating Keith with all his heart.

Something still feels incomplete. Lance looks around the room in hopes it'll jog his memory as to whatever it is that's bugging him. As he looks around the whiteboard catches his eye and Lance realises that underneath the desk might not be the first place someone would look unless they knew something was there, so he grabs a blue pen and scribbles a note in the corner of the whiteboard. He steps back and looks at it. It's kind of small and off to the side, Keith might not notice it. He erases it and tries again.

_I left your umbrella under your desk Conspiridork_

Much better. The last bit reminds him though...

_P.s. wouldn't it have been more effort to fake the moon landing?_

Lance is considering adding more when the clock catches his eye. _Shoot_. Five minutes till form. He grabs his back and dashes out of the room. Drama is on the other side of the school. _Quiznak._

 

 

 

Keith is late. Very very late. He blames Shiro. He very much blames Shiro. He's not sure why or how yet, but it's definitely Shiro's fault. The real reason is the busses, he missed his first one, which shouldn't have been a big deal, but the next one was twenty minutes late for some reason, meaning he waited for his bus for nearly an hour altogether. And his bus pass expired yesterday, which had he not been in such a rush he might have heard the bus driver telling him last night. So he had to get a day ticket instead. Meaning he had to stand there for an embarrassing two minutes while he fished around in his bag for his wallet, until he eventually found it after getting no less than five dirty looks from different people wondering what was holding up the bus.

Halfway through the bus ride he decides that it's because Shiro wont let him take his bike to school. If he could just ride to school he wouldn't have to deal with buses and socialising at six in the morning.

Shiro always said that this is why keith needs to get a car. Keith always stood by the point that he already had a motorbike and therefore no need for a car.

"Girls will be scared away by it Keith," Shiro had tried the first time they had the debate.

"I don't see an issue there," Keith had replied.

That had briefly thrown Shiro, (Keith wasn't sure why, it wasn't as if anyone had ever suspected Keith of being straight, really he shouldn't still trip over this stuff) but he still didn't budge on letting Keith bring the thing to school. Somewhere Keith got the impression that Shiro didn't like motorbikes.

Finally Keith arrives at the school. He doesn't even bother checking the time, he knows he's late. If it matters too much some dude with a pocket watch will pull out the time and tell him exactly how late he is. Keith gets held up a few more times on his way to his form (because apparently the universe just hates him that much) but eventually he gets to his area and his form room is in sight. As he's about to turn down the corridor that leads to his form a person blurs into him, almost knocking him down. Keith's teacher instincts kick in and he's about to yell after them not to run indoors when he notices that the figure is most definitely not in school uniform. And that he recognises the jacket. _was that Lance?_ And then: _what is he doing in PE? Drama's on the other side of the building._

Keith shakes his head, trying to knock the thoughts loose. It doesn't matter; he is not going to spend yet another morning trying to decipher what exactly goes on in Lance's mind.

When Keith sits down at his desk the only thing that stops him from collapsing is the fact that there are already students filtering into the room, whispering and giggling to themselves as they do. Keith sighs and leans back in his chair, trying not to make it too obvious that he's on the verge of falling asleep. when the whispers still haven't stopped two minutes after the bell has rung it becomes evident that this tactic is not going to work. Switching into teacher mode he puts a name to the first voice that he can.

"Pidge, do you have a question? He asks, fixing his stare on her.

"Yes," Pidge replies confidently, throwing Keith a bit. Not that he should have really expected any less from her.

"Then put your hand up."

Pidge promptly sticks her hand in the air. Keith suppresses a groan.

"What is it Pidge?"

"What _are_ your views on the moon landing?" a mischevious grin that Keith knows all too well is spread across Pidge's face. Keith stumbles, and then frowns. Pidge knows perfectly well what Keith's views on the moon landing are.

"Why are you asking?" Keith sighs, giving in to whatever it is Pidge is trying to do. Rather than say anything Pidge just points at the whiteboard. Keith turns to face it. _Well at least I know what Lance was doing in PE._

Lance has scrawled a note in obnoxiously large handwriting across Keith's whiteboard, effectively taking up pretty much the whole space. How the hell did he miss _that_ when he came into the room. Keith looks back at a sea full of eager faces. This is going to be a tough one to explain his way out of.

 

 

 

In the end Lance is very late to form, which of course then leads to a berating from his students about how can he expect them to be on time when he isn't. Lance doesn't really have an argument for that, so he just tells them he was doing very important teacher business in the most authorative tone he could muster.

"What were you doing?" Klyzap asks. _Damn._

"That isn't something for you guys to concern yourselves with, now let's get on with the register. There a few grumbles around the room, but for the most part Lance seems to have managed to dodge the question, so he continues as if it never happened. A few minutes later the bell rings to signal the classes to switch, and Lance chases his students out of the form room. His first class is in the auditorium, not his form. The only reason they ever use the classroom is if they're doing written work, and lance is particularly fond of the actual acting aspect of his class, so unless it's an exam those lessons are rare. Once he get's to the auditorium a few students are already there, (which lance isn't sure how they manage, because he has the quickest route) so he doesn't even have time to relax before his lesson. Lance clambers up onto his chair and groans (it's a particularly tall barstool chair he brought specifically so he could sit on it to look down on the students while he teaches, whenever Hunk asks he will insist it was worth every pound) he can already feel that today is going to be a long day.

 

 

 

**_A) Conspiridork is not a word_ **

**_B) Not if there's something they were trying to hide_ **

**_-keith_ **

Lance looks at the scribbled note with a stupid half smile on his face. Then he shakes his head and reminds himself that he is _not_ happy to hear from keith. The note just made him laugh, that's all. There's nothing more to it. Keith probably only replied to try to get under Lance's skin. Lance smirks. Two can play at that game.

 

 

 

Keith is not getting to school early in hopes that another note from Lance will be there. He just needs to get there early in case there is one. It has nothing to do with lance, he just has to find it before his students find it. If it is there. Not that he wants there to be. It'll be a lot easier if there is nothing there. And that won't bother Keith. Not in the slightest. Even if it would be interesting to see what Lance's comeback is.

Keith's hopes are dashed when he finds Pidge hanging around outside his form room. Pidge is smirking, that cannot be a good sign.

"Pidge are you even supposed to be in school this early?" Keith sighs, exasperated.

"Good to see you too Keith," she chirps. _Twerp_. "And I will have you know that I hitched a ride with Shiro this morning, who was happy to see that I was so invested in my education and getting to school on time."

Keith scowls, he had forgotten that Shiro had slept around Matt's house last night. Presumably to gush about allura from the night before that. Keith swears Shiro is practically still a six year old.

Keith pushes past Pidge into his form room. Technically Pidge shouldn't have entered before Keith let her in, but Pidge has never particularly cared about rules so long as no one catches her in the act of breaking them, so there is no doubt in his mind that Pidge has already been in there this morning. For a while Keith avoids looking at looking at the whiteboard, as if to prove to himself that he doesn't care. It's ridiculous really. Keith doesn't care, and there's no one to prove that to other than himself. And he already knows it. Keith frowns. He's spiralling again. But if he _really_ thinks about it, not looking means he is trying to prove it doesn't matter, and if he's trying to prove it to himself, that means it does matter to him. So really the best way to show it doesn't matter to him whether or not Lance said anything is to look at the whiteboard.

Confidence renewed Keith takes a deep breath and looks up at the board.

A) I don't think you can prove that

B) I don't think you can prove that

-best teacher ever

Keith smiles at the note. It is exactly the kind of idiotic thing lance would write. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Pidge smirking at him. _Fuck._ Keith wipes the smile off of his face and the note off of the whiteboard hurriedly. Not that either of those things mean anything, but he doesn't particularly care to hear Pidge's interpretation.

Keith slumps down onto his seat, not opening the door yet. Pidge can stand around for a while. In the meantime he sorts out timetables for the day, putting in his earphones. _We were just kids in love..._

 

 

 

Lance tries to tell himself that there won't be a note that morning. Keith hates mornings, so he probably wont be in school early enough to have left one. If he does leave one. But it would be rude not to reply really. Lance's last one had very clearly indicated a challenge, although he supposes that if Keith doesn't reply it counts as him admitting defeat and lance can add it to his wins.

Lance is still weighing the pros and cons of Keith replying vs. Keith not replying when he gets to his form room

_**A) I left a dictionary on your desk** _

_**B) Yes I can, look up the c rock and explain that, also why did we suddenly stop "landing" on the moon** _

_**C) Getting kind of desperate with your replies aren't you, we're only four in** _

_**-the actual best teacher ever** _

Lance laughs as he reads them, before wiping it off of the board and turning to his desk. Sure enough there's a dictionary there, and not even one of those small pocket editions, for some godforsaken reason Keith has left what is presumably the biggest dictionary he could find on his desk. Douchbag.

But still, Keith replied, and this? This means war.

 

 

 

_A) I am simply ahead of my time, 1000 years ago the dictionary would have sworn "hello" wasn't a word_

_B) It's just the lighting or a hair or something like that_

_C) Awww, you're counting for me, I'm flattered_

_\- The bestest teacher ever_

Keith looks at the board, Lance is a fool to challenge keith on his own turf, he's been arguing about conspiracies since before lance met him. This is a war that he can crush lance at.

 

 

 

_**A) we didn't have a dictionary 1000 years ago** _

_**B) yeah, that sounds like a real solid excuse:** _

_**i) That's real suspicious lighting** _

_**ii) Where do you propose this hair came from exactly?** _

_**C) It makes sense that you would think four is a hard number to count to** _

_**\- still the best teacher, as "bestest" is not a word** _

__

__

__

_A) and therefore could not have the word hello in_

_B) The people?_

_C) Shut up_

_\- still the bestest teacher (refer to my previous answer about being ahead of my time)_

 

_**A) that is the lamest argument I have ever heard** _

_**B) they were in space suits, if there was a hole a hair could get through, believe me, they'd know** _

_**C) very eloquently put** _

_**\- still the best teacher (You can't keep using that excuse)** _

 

_A) but I notice that you couldn't refute it_

_B) Look, I'm a drama teacher, if the moon landing were faked, you don't think I'd have noticed?_

_C) Thank you_

_\- look, even if you were the alpha of teachers, I'd be like the alpha of the alpha pack_

 

_**A) sometimes an argument is so stupid that there just isn't any point in refuting it, it just refutes itself** _

_**B) this point would only be valid if you were a good drama teacher** _

_**C) you really will take absolutely anything as a compliment, it must be a self defense mechanism as you so rarely get real ones** _

_**D) Was that a teen wolf reference?** _

_**-Irrefutably the best teacher and would actually be the alpha of the alpha pack** _

__

__

__

Keith gazes at the whiteboard mournfully. Lance has normally replied by now, but he left that last note yesterday morning, and it was almost time to leave. It's not that he's upset that lance hasn't replied, but it's lame of him not too, even if he can't think of anything to say he should have at least left a note conceding defeat, it is only polite.

"Keith!" Someone shouts his name from his doorway. he looks up, it's Shiro.

"You coming back with me, or taking the bus today?" Shiro raises an eyebrow at him.

"yeah, I'm coming, but I'm ignoring you the whole way home." Keith sighs as he looks around the classroom for his things. _Where did he put that folder?_ "Just give me a minute."

"I wouldn't expect anything less, see you outside." Shiro leaves the room and Keith glares at his desk. _Where the fuck is it?_ Keith has pulled half the things on his desk off of it before he remembers that he has drawers. cursing himself he pulls one open, and there it is. as he picks it up a piece of paper flutter out of his drawer. frowning, he picks it up. on it something is scrawled in familiar handwriting.

_The white board notes have been distracting my class, text me_

At the bottom of the note there's a phone number scrawled. Keith stares at the note for what must have been maybe a minute before he's interupted.

"Whatcha smiling at there Keith?" Keith can practically hear Pidge's mischevious grin before he sees it.

"Nothing," he says, a bit too hastily as he crumples the note and throws it into the bin. "What the fuck are you doing here Pidge?" He then asks as he regesters the time.

"Wow, swearing at a student, I should report you keith," Pidge makes her eyes go wide and stares innocently up at Keith. They both know that she won't follow through on the threat, but it is one more thing for Pidge to hold against him. he glowers.

"Just answer my question."

"You are no fun at all today," Pidge rolls her eyes. "Shiro sent me to see what was taking you so long." then at Keith's look of confusion adds on, "I'm hitching a ride with you guys today, Matt couldn't pick me up."

Keith glowers some more, then mutters a "Whatever" before grabbing his bags and ushering Pidge out of the room and closing the door firmly behind him.

Eventually they arrive at the carpark, and Keith has already put his headphones in by the time they get there. without saying a word to anyone Keith slides into the back. two minutes later they're still sat there, Pidge isn't yet in the car and Shiro looks to be making no moves to leave. He pulls out an earphone. "Where's Pidge?"

"She's just gone to the toilets," Shiro replies. "Which you'd know if you werent so insistant on being antisocial."

"It's asocial, you should know that, aren't you dating an english teacher or something?" Shiro goes bright red and tries to stutter something out about it not being like that, but Keith has already put his earphone back in.

Keith searches through his phone documents until he finds the thing he's looking for, attaches it to a text then types in a number and sends it off. A moment later Pidge is back and Shiro starts up the car, so Keith settles in for a long journey an plays his music, leaning back into the chair and closing his eyes, letting his music wash over him.

A few moments later his music is interrupted with the ding of a new message arriving. Hastily Keith unlocks his phone and looks at the screen.

**_(17:10) file sent_ **

_(17:11) Considering you just sent me what seems to be a very detailed essay on the moon landing being faked, i'm going to go ahead and assume that this is Keith_

Keith smiles at the message for a moment before replying

(17:12) **_Wow, you sure are a modern day Sherlock_**

_(17:12) You know, you'd be surprised by how often people tell me that_

**_(17:13) Not if they're being sarcastic I wouldn't_ **

_(17:13) Ouch_

_(17:13) You have hurt my feelings_

_(17:13) I am mortally wounded_

_(17:14) Only the most sincere praise of my teaching ability and admission that I truly am the best teacher that has ever lived can save me now_

**_(17:14) I hope the funeral's fun_ **

_(17:15)Wow_

_(17:15) You know what, it will be_

_(17:15) And you aren't invited_

**_(17:16) Oh, how will I ever get over that_ **

**_(17:16) It will probably be as difficult to get over as your death_ **

_(17:16) Sometimes I feel like you don't care about me_

**_(17:17) It's because I don't_ **

"Sooo, who you messaging?" Keith looks up from his phone, startled. It's Pidge, of course. They're stuck at a red light and Pidge is twisted around in her seat to lean over her armrest and stare at him with a sly smile on her face that suggests she already knows full well who he's messaging. Shiro is watching all of this unfold through the mirror, trying to seem uninterested.

"No one." Keith replies.

"Hey, don't lie to a liar keith, I know what texting looks like."

"Well then it's none of your damn business."

"Watch your language keith," Shiro scolds from the front.

They're moving again and Keith starts to realise how travel sick he feels from staring at his phone for the whole journey. He stares intently at a spot on the window.

"So who is it?" Pidge presses a few minutes later.

"Refer to my previous answer." Keith keeps his eyes fixed on the spot, despite the travel sickness having mostly faded.

Once Pidge has been quiet for a couple of minutes keith shoves his earphones back in, wondering when they fell out.

Once Pidge leaves Shiro waves for Keith's attention. Keith pulls his earphones out and gives Shiro his best "leave me alone" stare.

"Are you going to move into the front?" Shiro asks innocently. Undoubtedly a trap of some kind. Still, Keith can't think of a single reason to refuse.

Just as Keith is settled into the front and is about to start his music again Shiro starts to speak again.

"So who _were_ you messaging?" Shiro asks, still smiling sweetly.

"No one!" Keith throws his hands into the air, glowering at the floor of the car. Shiro says nothing, just taps on the steering wheel and flicks his indicator as he turns out of the back road and onto the main road. Keith can just feel the disappointed vibe. "Well, I mean I _am_ texting some one, but it's nothing important, just a..." Keith stalls, unsure of how to define Lance. "It's no one."

"A new friend?" Shiro asks.

Keith doesn't answer.

"So is there anything I should know?" Shiro glances over at keith.

"Like what?" Keith doesn't bother looking over at Shiro, just sinks further into his seat.

"Well, I know you don't often make connections, or go into... relationships."

Suddenly something clicked in Keith's mind. "God, no! Shiro that is so not it!" Keith almost jumps out of his seat and then immediately sinks back into it even further than he was before, hoping it will open up and swallow him.

"Look, I'm just letting you know that if you ever need to talk to me about anything-" Keith shoves in his earphones and turns his volume up to full blast, effectively blocking out anything Shiro says.

He opens up his window and sticks his head out, and soon enough Shiro has stopped trying to talk to him. He decides against getting his phone out again like he'd been planning to, just glares out the window, letting the wind rip against his face and the music drowns out all of his thoughts. _Because obviously, she's out of my league._

 

 

 

_(17:17) You wound me_

_(17:20) You still there?_

_(17:30) You know some of the points in this essay thing are actually pretty good_

_(17:31) I mean, if you ignore the obvious flaws_

_(17:32) Like, it's heavily reliant on aliens existing_

_(17:32) And being on the moon_

_(17:32) Also leans on every last one of these people keeping the secret_

_(17:33) And ignores the overwhelming evidence for actually landing on the moon_

_(17:33) Like the moon rocks_

_(17:34) I'm going to stop spamming you now_

_(17:35) See ya_

**_(18:03) Sorry, Pidge was bugging me, and then Shiro_ **

_(18:04) When isn't Pidge bothering someone?_

_(18:04) Shiro too tho? What was it about?_

**_(18:05) Wouldn't you like to know_ **

_(18:06) Sounds like someone is keeping a secret..._

**_(18:07) No, I just delight in keeping things from you_ **

_(18:07) Ouch :(_

**_(18:07) You spend a lot of time being butthurt, don't you?_ **

_(18:08) Did you just use the word butthurt?_

**_(18:08) Sometimes it's the right word to use_ **

**_(18:10) ?_ **

_(18:11) Sorry, you justhave to give me a moment to readjust my world view._

**_(18:11) Your whole world huh?_ **

**_(18:13) Also_ ** **_, while you do that im leaving_ **

_(18:13) oh, okay._

_(18:13) bye!_

**_(18:14) bye_ **

****

 

****

_(17:11) Hunk_

_(17:11) HUnk_

_(17:11)HUNk_

_(17:11)HUNK_

**_ (17:12) What's up? _ **

_(17:12) He texted_

**_ (17:12) Who did? _ **

_(17:13) Keith_

**_ (17:13) Keith _ **

**_ (17:13) The one you don't have a crush on _ **

_(17:14) Are there any Keiths that I do have a crush on?_

**_ (17:14) You tell me _ **

_(17:15) Feck off_

**_ (17:15) You gave him your number _ **

_(17:16) Yes_

**_ (17:16) Why _ **

_(17:17) The white board notes were disrupting my class_

**_ (17:17) Sweet jesus lance _ **

_(17:17) You are not being helpful Hunk_

**_ (17:18) I don't know what you want from me if not help wooing him _ **

_(17:18) I need to assert my dominance Hunk_

_(17:18) How can I do that if even my bff refuses to take me seriously_

**_ (17:20) Sorry, just idk, be yourself? _ **

_(17:20) Hunk, I love you, I love me, but do you honestly think normal me is intimidating?_

**_ (17:21) Sorry bro, but I really have no tips in terms of intimidation _ **

**_ (17:21) I'm a lover, not a fighter _ **

_(17:21) I know buddy, you gave it your best shot_

_(17:22) Oh well, he seems to have stopped replying anyway, in the mean time im gonna go bother Coran, maybe he'll have a few tips_

**_ (17:22) later bro _ **

_(17:22) later_

_(18:11) aw fuck, I think I just accidentally called him my world_

_(18:12) wait I can fix this_

_(18:14) nvm he left_

_(17:22) Hey Coran_

_ (17:23) Need help with something? _

_(17:23) Sort of_

_(17:23) How would one make themselves seem more intimidating/ assert their dominance over text_

_ (17:24) Easy peasy! I always find that using the correct punctuation and not using contractions asserts a sense of authority. _

_ (17:24) Also phrase everything as a question _

_(17:25) Got it, thanks_

_(18:15) I think I failed, he left :'(_

(18:16) Well, it's not a perfect method, and it often takes years of practice to perfect the art of text intimidation

_(18:16) I'm not sure I believe that_

(18:17) Lance, my dearest lad, when have I ever led you astray?

_(18:18) I'm not going to answer that_

(18:18) Ha ha, I see your point

(18:19) I promise you this is not one of those times

_(18:19) Whatever you say, but I think im going to try another aproach_

(18:20) oh well, good luck in your endevours

_(18:21) speaking like that is exactly what earns you the title weird ancient space uncle_

(18:21) can we not just keep it shortened to space uncle, it sounds cooler

(18:22) like im some kind of space pirate 

 

_(08:09) Keith_

_(08:11) KEith_

_(08:13) KEIth_

_(08:15) KEITh_

_(08:16) KEITH_

_(08:17) KEEITH_

_(08:17) KEEIITH_

**_(08:18) Shouldn't you be teaching?_ **

_(08:18) Finally!_

**_(08:18) I actualy noticed like three texts in, I just wanted to see what you would do when you finished capitalising my name, but then it just got annoying_ **

**_(08:19) But once again, shouldn't you be teaching?_ **

_(08:19) Pffft, it's only form, they can get on by themselves_

**_(08:20) Did you just pffft at me over text_ **

_(08:20) Yes I did, got a problem Mullet boi?_

**_(08:21) Mullet boi?_ **

_(08:21) it's what I've got you down as on my phone_

**_(08:22) I'm leaving_ **

**_(08:22) I have a class to teach_ **

_(08:23) Awww, come on_

_(08:24) Please don't shut me out again_

_(08:24) Please don't slam the door_

_(08:24) You don't have to keep your distance anymore_

**_(08:25) Please stop_ **

_(08:25) What, do you not know your lines?_

_(08:27) Oh my god are you serious_

**_(08:28) I don't watch Disney movies, sue me_ **

_(08:28) YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ANY OF THEM!?!?!?!_

**_(08:29) And?_ **

 

 

 

As it turns out lance's exclamation of "WHAT THE QUIZNAK?!" and him hitting his forehead with the palm of his hand was not as much in his head as he though. Nor was it subtle. The entire class turns to look at him.

Lance makes an attempt to sneak his phone into his drawer as if it had been there the whole time, but while Klaizap may not be the most mentally gifted student, he had the eyes of a hawk and enough brains to put two and two together, and soon Lance found himself regretting the decision to make any attempt to hide the phone.

"You were texting in class!" Klaizap shouts out, pointing a finger at the hand holding the phone that Lance had been trying to hide. Lance tries to think on his feet, there's no point in outright lying, not when it was so obvious.

"It was very important," Lance lies instead, putting on his most masterful pokerface.

"Prove it."

"What?" that reply throws Lance, and his mind starts blaring warning alarms

"When you catch us texting in class you make us tell you what it's about. It's only fair that you should do the same."

Lance freezes, mentally trying to find a way out of this, or some way to twist it so it doesn't look so bad.

"Me and a... me and someone else were discussing theatre," He finally settles on.

"What kind," another student presses. They know he's hiding something. Quiznak.

"Disney?" he tries hopefully.

"That doesn't count as important teacher stuff!" a few voices object around the room, and honestly he cant blame them. Lance tries to spin it so it doesn't look so bad, telling them how important Disney is to their culture now and how much of an impact they've had on the film industry and theatre. They aren't buying it.

"Look, how about for a class discussion we pull up some videos from old Disney and new Disney vovies and see how it's changed," he tries, attempting to steer the conversation in a new direction. He doesn't wait for a reply, just pulls up youtube and clicks on a link, hoping that this'll work.

 

 

 

Keith stares at his phone mournfully. Lance normally replies way quicker than this. Maybe he's really mad about this Disney thing. Is it really that important to him? Keith scolds a few students who have taken advantage of Keith's brooding silence to start whispering among themselves and feels somewhat better. Maybe it's stupid texting Lance in the first place. But Lance had been the one to give him his number right? That means he wanted Keith to text him.

Keith gives his phone another quick check under the guise of checking the time, ignoring the clock hanging right in front of him. He sighs, things had been so much simpler two weeks ago, before the note passing and texting. Keith could break it all down into black and white back then, Lance hated keith, and while until then Keith had never had any particular feelings towards lance (outside of him being ridiculously cute, but painfully heterosexual) it had been pretty easy to be his rival. It was a relationship he had never had to break down or analyse, no pretense or hidden meanings. Just enemies.

Now...

Now Keith is letting his thoughts run away with him. Lance has never given Keith a reason to think he no longer hates him. He texts, but probably only to make fun of Keith, or to argue. Developing any sort of feelings towards him is a bad idea, Keith keeps telling himself that.

Keith is in the middle of debating wether or not to watch part of a Disney movie during his next period (nobody wished pe on anyone first thing in the morning on a Monday, so he had an hour or so free) when someone bursts into the room.

"I JUSt GOT RICK ROLLED IN FRONT OF MY ENTIRE CLASS AND I KNOW IT WAS PIDGE!" Lance enters the room fuming, and Keith sits in place blinking up at him.

"rick... rolled?"

 

 

 

"Pidge, this is your second time in my office this month," Keith sighs at Pidge, rubbing his temple.

"Only twice is pretty good I'd say," Pidge defends.

"It's the sixth." Keith stares Pidge dead in the eyes. "And two of those days were weekends."

"Look, it's not like you can actually peg me for anything, so can we hurry this up. I'm missing English." Pidge slouches back in her chair, satisfied that they can't trace this back to her.

"I have a whole folder of things that have happened that we're just waiting to peg you for." keith leans over to the side and picks up a folder. "You need to stop, Pidge."

Pidge just looks more excited than nervous. "ooh, i haven't been keeping track, do you think you could send it to me?"

"Where do i start?" Keith says, ignoring pidge. "Let's see, theres quite a few hacked emails in here all supposedly send by Mr Shirogane. They range from 'wear a sombrero to school day' to cancelling school, presumably just when you didn't feel like showing up."

"Hey, one time I just sent it to the teachers, that was my personal favourite of those."

"Not the time you called a snow day in July?"

Pidge just shrugs and leans back in her seat again. "not that I did any of these things of course."

"How about the time you rigged the lights and speakers so that they would go into disco mode and shout 'RANDOM DANCING' throughout the school day."

"It's not like there were any epileptics in school."

"Yes, they all mysteriously got emails telling them not to come into school for the day."

"At least your mystery hacker is considerate."

"And leaving that folder for the moment, i have one here which is entirely complaints submitted by Lance"

"Of course you have a separate folder for lance."

"My powerpoint was hacked today to show furry fanart as opposed to proper content, i suspect Pidge." Keith looks up at her. "There are a few complaints of similar incidents with powerpoints  there so I'm going to skip over those, but there is also 'my desk has been gradually getting taller this term, I suspect Pidge.' and most recently the Rick Astley incident. Shall i go on?"

"Please do."

"Pidge, i don't want to have to suspend you."

"You just don't want to lose your bet with Lance"

"That isn't the point Pidge."

"Then what is the point?"

"The point is, I can't let you leave this office until you've promised me you're going to at least try to be good from here on."

"Even if it's a lie?"

"Pidge!"

"Okay! okay!" pidge throws her hands into the air. "I _promise_  I'll try to behave myself." She winks at Keith as she says it.

Keith sighs in exasperation. "Whatever, just get out of my office. you're a lost cause."

 

 

 

 _(12:03)_  D _id you suspend pidge_

_**(12:04) No** _

_(12:04) You can't not suspend her just because she's your best shot at winning the bet_

_(12:04) That's cheating_

_**(12:04) No, I can't suspend her because I can't prove it was her** _

_(12:05) But I know it was her!_

_**(12:05) Bring me proof and I will happily suspend her** _

_(12:05) If I could track it back to her I'd know it wasn't Pidge, there's never going to be evidence!_

**_(12:06) And therefore I can't suspend her_ **

_(12:06) This is a stupid system_

**_(12:06) You're just mad that a 16 year old is smarter than you_ **

_(12:07) You're an asshole you know that_

**_(12:07) Love you too_ **

_(12:08) What_

_(12:09) Keith_

_(12:10) Keith where did you go_

_(12:11) We're in the same school I can track you down_

_(12:12) KEITH_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aight, so Ima actually post art on my Insta this time I promise, it'll be up in like two minutes and you can find that at themaagoodraws and my personal Insta is at imacenotaplant anyway I hope you liked this chapter, idk when the next one will be up so once again sorry about that but if you liked this please leave kudos or comment or share it anyway, Ima go back to crying while listening to Michael in the bathroom  
> and hey,  
> you're beautiful


	3. that one was intentional

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK!!!
> 
> sorry about the mini hiatus, I was doing NaNoWriMo and didn't really have much time to work on other things also because of that this chapter is only really half a chapter, it was intended to be on longer chapter, but I hit a writers block and want some time to work that out, but in the meantime here, have this.

**_(_ ** **_12:07) I fucked up_ **

**_(12:07) I fucked up bad_ **

**_(12:08) please help_ **

** _(12:08) what did you do?_ **

**_(12:09) I accidentally told someone I loved them_ **

** _(12:09) do you?_ **

**_(12:10) NO_ **

**_(12:10) they called me an asshole and my natural reaction was to say I love you too_ **

**_(12:10) then I remembered that that's only a thing between us_ **

**_(12:11) what do I do_ **

** _(12:11) maybe they won't notice?_ **

**_(12:11) they noticed_ **

** _(12:12) sorry just give me a minute to stop laughing_ **

**_(12:12) SHIRO_ **

**_(12:13) ugh, whatever. I can figure this out on my own_ **

** _(12:13) good luck_ **

_-_

_-_

_-_

_(12:12) KEITH_

**_(12:13) Sorry, wrong person_ **

_(12:13) and why did it take you 5 minutes to say that?_

**_(12:14) my wifi is bad_ **

_(12:14) texting doesn't use wifi Keith_

**_(12:15) can we just forget that this happened_ **

**_(12:15) please_ **

_(12:16) sure_

_(12:16) but only because I know you love me really_

**_(12:17) I hate you._ **

_(12:17) no you don't_

_(12:17) don't worry, it's not your fault, I'm just simply too charming for anyone to resist_

**_(12:18) Allura and Nyma seem to manage it pretty well_ **

_(12:18) mine and Nyma's break up was entirely mutual_

**_(12:19) And Allura?_ **

_(12:20) okay, so there's an exception to every rule_

_**(12:20) that doesn't make me any less charming** _

**_(12:21) but a multitude of other things do_ **

_(12:21) pffft, name one thing not charming about me_

**_(12:21) just one?_ **

_(12:22) sounds like someone is trying to get out of it_

**_(12:22) you once dropped your entire tray of food trying to catch a bottle that almost fell off_ **

_(12:22) okay, so I'm a bit clumsy_

**_(12:23) another time you tried to catch a piece of chicken in your mouth and it landed in your nose_ **

_(12:23) how do you even know about that_

**_(12:23) you then spent the next 2 minutes screeching about needing to go to the nurses office because you had rice up your nose_ **

**_(12:24) On the topic of similar incidents you also almost chocked on a chocolate button_ **

_(12:24) are you quite done?_

**_(12:24) another time you leant too far back on your chair and fell off it, you then spent the next five minutes fixing your hair in the mirror because you were afraid that the fall might have messed it up_ **

**_(12:25) you once slipped in mud and cried because that was your favourite outfit_ **

_(12:25) why do you know this much_

**_(12:26) or when you sneezed so hard you fell off of your chair_ **

_(12:26) please stop_

_**(12:26) do you concede defeat?** _

_(12:27) those are just character quirks_

**_(12:27) like the time you had a staring contest with a fish_ **

_(12:28) I won that_

**_(12:28) on the sixth try when the fish swam away_ **

_**(12:28) my personal favourites are the jokes that you improvise because you forgot how they went halfway through** _

_(12:28) ?_

**_(12:29) What do you call a house with no legs?_ **

_(12:29) please don't_

**_(12:29) BECAUSE IT HAD NO BODY TO GO WITH!_ **

_(12:29) what about the time you hit yourself in the face with a football Mr PE teacher_

**_(12:30) that happened once_ **

_(12:30) there was also the time you hit Shiro in the face with a football_

**_(12:30) that one was intentional_ **

_(12:31) ha, not so nice when the shoe's on the other foot is it_

_(21:31) wait what_

**_(12:32) he was pissing me off_ **

_(12:32) you broke his nose_

_(12:33) he still has the scar_

**_(12:33) he still has the warning_ **

_(12:34) what did he do??_

**_(12:35) he tried taking down my wall while I was out_ **

_(12:35) your wall?_

**_(12:36) my wall of notes and stuff_ **

_(12:36) for teaching?_

_**(12:36) no** _

_(12:37) are you telling me..._

_(12:37) that you have a conspiracy wall_

**_(12:38) and?_ **

_(12:39) oh my god I need to see this_

**_(12:39) no_ **

_(12:40) pretty please with a cherry on the top?_

**_(12:41) I'm leaving_ **

_(12:41) You can't just keep running away when it gets tough mullet boi_

**_(12:42) I have a class in ten minutes_ **

_(12:42) sure you do_

**_(12:43) goodbye Lance_ **

_(12:43) I will see this wall if it is the last thing that I do_

_-_

_-_

_-_

_(01:11) sooo_

_(01:11) you looking forward to the school trip tomorrow?_

_(01:12) mullet boi?_

**_(01:12) lance I have to wake up in four hours_ **

_(01:13) ugh, how can you sleep there's a field trip tomorrow_

**_(01:13) what are you twelve?_ **

_(01:14) Can I not be excited about my field trip_

**_(01:14) can you be excited elsewhere?_ **

_(01:15) no, hunk's asleep_

**_(01:15) wise man_ **

_(01:16) I expect you to take the full brunt of my excited tomorrow_

**_(01:16) goodnight lance_ **

_(01:17) goodnight_

_-_

_-_

_-_

"I bet my group gets more bingo sheets ticked off than yours does Keith," Lance smirks at the other boy.

"I'll be surprised if you get even one," Keith shoots back.

"Well we're going to get... thirty! So... so suck on that Keith!"

"There are only twenty students at most in every group genius."

"Yeah, and they're going to do so well that they have to give us second sheets. Ha!"

"You guys do know that you're in the same group right?" someone interrupts them from the side.

"What?" both of them simultaneously turn on Shiro.

"Yeah, were you not paying attention when you signed up?"

"Well it must be Keith's fault, because I for one _know_ that I didn't put myself on a team with _Keith_."

"I did ask if this was the team you really wanted to be on Keith," Shiro tells him and Keith groans.

"I wasn't paying attention to who was in the group, I just picked the one with the least people! It's not _my_ fault nobody else wanted to be with Lance."

"Well, look at it this way, this'll be a great bonding exercise for you two, it'd be nice if everyone could get along better." Shiro smiles encouragingly at them. They glare at each other. Shiro sighs. This is going to be a long day.

-

-

-

"Okay group, we're going to the aquarium first to see the sharks, this way everybody," Lance gestures to the side and starts to walk off in that direction before Keith grabs his arm, frowning. Lance groans.

"What up mullet boi?"

"We were going to take the group to see the hippos first."

"We never decided that."

"Well I did," Keith pulls a sheet of paper out of his backpack and shoves it at Lance. "I made a schedule for today, we go to see the hippos first, and then the-"

"But there's no sharks on here anywhere!" Lance interrupts, horrified.

"Sure there is," Keith points at something on the sheet. "It goes under aquarium here."

"But that's only a half hour slot for the whole place! That only gives us like a minute with the sharks!"

"All there is to do is look at them, you can do that as you walk past."

"You allotted twenty minutes with the hippos keith!"

"You can _feed_ the hippos Lance!"

"I want to go see the bats," Klaizap interrupts.

"The bats aren't important Klaizap," Keith and Lance respond simultaneously.

"Actually, I've got them on my bingo sheet," one student says. Quickly the other students join in, muttering agreement.

Keith and Lance glower. "Fine, let's go see the bats," Lance mutters.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"Why is it lunch time and we still haven't gone to see the sharks?" Lance groans and hangs dangerously backwards off of his seat.

"We still haven't gone to see the hippos either," Keith complains next to him, folding his arms and sinking into the bench.

"Why don't you guys go to see them during lunch?" Hunk suggests.

"We've gotta keep an eye on the class, duh." Lance reminds him.

"I could keep an eye on them," Hunk suggests. "We're all in this area, so it doesn't really matter. I'm sure Shiro will be fine with it if you run it past him."

"Oh my god really!" Lance shoots up in his seat, and even keith perks up beside him.

"Yeah, no problem buddy, just run it past Shiro first."

"Run what past me first?" Shiro slides in next to hunk, looking up at Lance.

"Ah, Shiro! Just the man I need to see! Is it okay if I go see the sharks and Keith goes to see the hippos during the lunch break, Hunk says he'll keep an eye on the students for us."

"Hmm," Shiro looks them over. "I'm not sure how I feel about you guys being alone, so only if you go together."

"But how are we supposed to fit both of them in?" Lance objects.

"lunch break is an hour, and they're pretty close together, I'm sure you can manage it."

"Fine, I'll take care of Lance," Keith grumbles next to him.

"See you guys in an hour!" Shiro smiles brightly and then goes back to his food.

Lance splutters for a moment but allows Keith to pull him out of his seat and then they head off together.

"so whats the real reason they have to go together?" Hunk asks once they're gone.

"Oh, it'll be a good bonding exercise for them."

"And how did you know Keith would agree to it?"

"He'll do pretty much anything for hippos."

-

-

-

"So..."

"Hippos first."

"But-"

"They're closer, it makes sense." Lance grumbles for a bit but can't think of a good argument so he just follows keith, who seems to know his way _really_ well for some reason. Eventually they arrive at the hippo enclosure.

Lance turns to Keith, prepared to make a joke, but he's caught off guard by the expression of pure joy on keith's face. Damn it's hard to make fun of him when he's so damn adorable.

"So what's your thing with hippos?"

"What's your thing with sharks?" Keith shoots back defensively.

"Sharks are badass!"

"So are hippos!"

Lance laughs, and Keith glares at him.

"So didn't you say something about feeding the hippos?" Lance asks, smiling at keith. Keith stumbles, but then his face lights up again as he nods vigorously.

"Lead the way," Lance tells Keith, sweeping his arms out in front of himself.

Keith races over to the hippos immediately, moving so fast that lance has trouble keeping up. by the time that lance tunes into the conversation keith is having with one of the zookeepers, keith has already managed to procure two bags of hippo feed. Keith leads the way into the hippo enclosure confidently, and Lance just follows.

Keith shows Lance the best way to feed the hippos, and Lance manages to somewhat surprise Keith with his animal skills (Lance knows this because he begrudgingly makes  a comment lance having to be good at _something_ , which lance chooses to ignore). twenty minutes later, they're all out of food and Lance manages to drag Keith away from the hippos.

"I still don't understand why you're going to need that long with the sharks, all you're going to do is stare at them," Keith grumbles as they aproach the aquarium.

"You're saying that if you could you wouldn't stare at hippos for half an hour?" Lance counters. Keith pouts.

"Come on, there's a good place to sit and eat with a great view of the shark tank," Lance tells Keith, grabbing his hand and dragging him forwards. Keith tenses up at the touch of Lance's hand against his, but allows himself to be lead forwards.

As it turns out, Lance is right this is a great place to sit and watch the sharks while they eat, not that Keith cares about the sharks of course. no, Keith simply appreciates that this is a good view of the shark tank. As they sit and eat lunch, Lance strikes up a conversation.

"So what do you do when you aren't working?" Lance asks casually, attempting to take a bite of his sandwich as he does so. what happens is that he sort of talks around the sandwich, and the end result is garbled, and sounds more like "oh whah oo you oo oohshi hool?" it takes Keith a moment to process exactly what he heard.

"Oh, well I..." Keith desperately tries to think of something that he does outside of school. "I ride my motorbike."

lance rolls his eyes, "I know that, and while don't get me wrong, that is awesome, there has got to be _other_ things that you do." 

_Fuck._

"well, I watch some documentaries," he supplies hopefully.

"Really? what about?" _dang,_ Keith really hadn't expected this conversation to go any further.

"Erm, you know. stuff." Keith suddenly becomes very interested in his own sandwich.

"what, do you watch documentaries on like aliens and stuff?" Lance suggests jokingly. Keith stares very dedicatedly at his food. "Oh my god, are you for real?" Keith makes the mistake of looking up, Lance looks like a child who has just been given the new x-box for Christmas.

"They're interesting," Keith defends.

"Oh my god you have to let me watch one with you."

"No."

"Please."

"Double no."

"Pretty please?"

"With extra nope on the top"

"I won't tell Shiro that you were the one who wrote dumbass on my whiteboard in permanent marker."

"Are you blackmailing me?"

"Is it working?"

"Ugh, fine. I'll pick you up at your house."

"On your motorbike?"

" _No_ , with the _car_ I don't have."

"Tonight?" Lance seems unperturbed by Keith's sarcasm.

"Tomorrow," keith counters.

"Awesome!" Lance fisbumps the air and a giant smile breaks out across his face. Keith tries not to read too much into that.

"Anyway, we should be heading back to our group," keith says finally as he finishes up his meal. Lance looks disappointed, but doesn't complain, which is a nice change. they clean up and head back to their group and after that the rest of the day seems to pass in a whirlwind.

Eventually they're back on the bus and lance has managed to coerce all of the students and teachers on board into a rowdy song of "the wheels on the bus" which has now gotten significantly longer than it is supposed to, and now more resembles the "I went to the market and I bought..." game than a song.

As they're getting onto their twelfth verse, the antelopes on the bus go snort snort snort, (shiro had hurriedly changed it from druggies, which had been the initial suggestion) the bus finally pulls into the school, and keith gets off hurriedly, thankful that he no longer has to remember the long, long list of things that make various noises on the bus. (forget the antelopes, who on earth brings a fucking food processor onto a bus?)

About fifteen minutes later everybody is off of the bus and out of the school, and therefore no longer Keith's problem. however, as the balance of the universe demands, keith is quickly confronted by a new problem.

"Sooo, when are you picking me up tomorrow?" _Fuck._  Keith had almost managed to forget about the stupid deal he had made with Lance. Not that he was really sure that you could call it a deal, more of a stupid decision that only really benefitted one of them. Or you know, _blackmail._ there's a reason that these words exist.

"Are we really going to do this?" Keith turns to look Lance dead in the eye and give him his best "Are you fucking kidding me?" glower. Lance brushes it off with practiced ease.

"Of course! You did agree after all."

"Remind me again why you even _want_ to do this?"

"Know thy enemy," Lance replies in a deadpan tone. Keith honestly cannot tell whether or not he's joking.

Keith groans and kicks the wall, briefly contemplatings how difficult it could really be to hide a body, but then decides to save that solution for when things get _really_ dire.

"Fine, what time works for you?" Keith breathes out a sigh of defeat with the sentence.

"Any time after 11."

"What about twelve?"

"That's so _early_."

Keith shoots Lance another glower and Lance raises his hands in defeat.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Jeeze. Yes, twelve o'clock works for me." Lance walks off as soon as they've figured this out, wearing an ear to ear grin that Keith decides he would really rather not figure out. And definitely not stay up thinking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed that chapter, as always I'm going to post some art to go with it on my art Insta @themaagoodraws, which will probably be up later today or tomorrow
> 
> and don't forget to sacrifice a small child to me if you liked this chapter (or if you're short a child just like, leave a comment and kudos)
> 
> -themaagoo out


	4. So are we officially just hiding in the kitchen until Shiro leaves?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> like part 2/3 of this one really long ass chapter that got away from me, sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BETCHYA THOUGHT YOU'D SEEN THE LAST OF ME
> 
> im so sorry. I am so sorry for the wait, also sorry that this is not even the full chapter I wanted to finish off but god it's already so long and I figured that six months later I should probably give you something? im also really excited to finally be able to share it with you I've had some bits written since before I released the last bit and I actually forgot that you guys haven't seen it yet. hope you like it anyhow

Keith checks the address that Lance texted him one last time before he leaves. It's only a twenty or so minute drive there, and it's almost eleven thirty.

Keith looks up at the clock and bites his lip. he doesn't want to leave early and make it seem like he's eager or anything (because he's not) but he also doesn't want to be rude and show up late. he scowls at the clock. why does nobody ever teach you the correct protocol for these kinds of situations? he wonders if the problem will sort itself out if he stares at the clock for long enough.

as it turns out, despite what shiro tells him, shutting down and not doing anything for ten minutes does solve some problems, because suddenly it's twenty to twelve and keith no longer has any time to debate correct rivalry etiquette.

Grabbing his helmet Keith dashes out of the door and onto his bike. After making sure that he has a spare one stashed away in his store box he revs the engine and starts making his way to Lance's house.

 

Lance glowers at his reflection with as much venom as he can muster, he’s certain that spot wasn’t there yesterday. He shakes his head at himself, trying to stop focusing on it so much. He finishes up his skin routine, other than the spot everything seems to be in order. He makes sure his hair is just how he likes it and then leaves the bathroom mirror to get to another, equally important matter.

As he spends the next ten or so minutes rifling through outfits and dismissing them it occurs to him that he might be putting in a bit too much effort for just Keith. By which of course, he means that Hunk very loudly tells him this from his perch at the end of his bed.

And you’re sure that this isn’t a date?” Hunk asks, giving a thumbs up to the outfit that Lance is holding up, as he has done for the past thirteen. Lance just shakes his head with a sigh and dismisses the outfit.

“As I’ve told you repeatedly Hunk, I have no romantic feelings towards Keith. The guy’s an ass.”

“And man _what an ass_ am I right?”

Lance gives Hunk a better glare than the one he gave his reflection earlier, and his friend raises his hands in submission.

“Only repeating what you’ve said,” Hunk mutters.

“Shut up.”

“Dude, if it’s not a date, then why are you trying so hard?”

“I’m not!”

“Then just go in your normal clothes.”

“But I have to make sure I look better than him!”

“You’re Lance Freaking McClain, you’ll look better than him no matter what you wear!”

Lance sighs. He hates it when his friend makes such excellent points. “Fine.”

“Great! Now go seduce your boyfriend!”

A pillow hits hunk square in the face.

 

 

Lance is in the middle of shoving a chicken cob whole into his mouth while simultaneously putting on his shoes, when someone knocks at the door. He makes a series of noises that are meant to be “I’ll be there in a minute!” and hops over to the door, one foot still only half in a shoe. It’s Keith. Of course.

Lance tries for a casual, “hey Keith” then remembers he still has his breakfast stuffed halfway in his mouth he removes the saDdwich, swallows what he has left and tries again.

“Keith, You’re early.” Lance tries to sound as dignified as he can under the current circumstances.

“No I’m not.” Keith pulls out his phone and shoves it under Lance’s nose. One minute past twelve.

“Is that a mothman background?” Lance asks with a smile growing on his face. “Are you for real right now?”

Keith pouts. “Whatever. Should I even bother asking if you’re ready to leave?” he points at the shoe hanging off of lance’s foot

Lance flushes and hops away from the door awkwardly. “Come in while I finish up I guess.”

Keith shuffles in past Lance and stands next to the sofa, trying not to step on Lance’s rug with his shoes. Not that the rug seems to be in great condition, but it seems kind of rude. Suddenly there’s a clattering noise from the kitchen and a cat streaks through the door. The cat stops at Keith’s feet and he picks her up, mostly out of habit. Moments later Hunk bursts out of the kitchen.

“Sorry! My bad! Everything is fine!” he looks around the room and notices Keith stood there. “Oh, hey Keith.”

“Hi.”

“Are you breaking my crockery!” Lance’s voice echoes down from the hall.

“I just dropped an oven tray!” Hunk yells back as he retreats back into the kitchen.

“I leave you alone for two minutes!” Lance appears back in the doorway, and this time he appears to be ready to leave. He turns on Keith, “I’m ready to go when you… are you tying to steal my cat?”

“What?” Keith looks down and remembers the cat that he has been absentmindedly petting for the past minute or so. “Oh, right.” He puts her down on the floor and then looks back at Lance.

“I have freed your cat, can we leave now?”

“Don’t forget to use protection!” Hunk yells from the kitchen.

Lance’s face goes bright red and he tells hunk to… _quiznak off?_

“I remembered a second helmet, don’t worry,” Keith tells Lance.

“Right! Yes, helmets! Helmets are good, :amce mumbles as he walks out of the door. Keith takes this as a cue to follow him.

Outside, Lance is stood by the motorbike, looking at it like he can’t decide whether he’s excited or scared. Keith grins, he can certainly help make up lance’s mind about that one.

“Come on,” Keith says, walking towards the motorbike. He digs out a helmet and throws it at Lance. “We haven’t got all day.” Lance just about manages to catch the helmet, after almost fumbling it three times, and shoves it firmly onto his head. Keith glances over as he swings onto the bike.

“Your straps are too loose.”

Lance glowers, but tightens them without questioning. Maybe there is some common sense buried deep in his head somewhere.

“So uh, do I just-”

“Sit down? That is how bikes typically work Lance.”

“Shut up.” Lance flushes but slides onto the seat.

“You might want to hold on.”

“To- to you?”

“No, to the tyres.”

Keith can’t see, but he’s sure that Lance is glaring a hole into the back of his head, nevertheless a few seconds later lance slides his arms around Keith’s waist.

“Tighter than that unless you want to fall off,” Keith smirks.”

Lance grips tighter.

“Ready?”

“Hell yeah.”

 

 

For once, Lance is glad to be behind Keith. Despite the eye visor on the helmet, the wind tears at him and he can feel his eyes stinging. The wind is definitely the only reason for the tears. And (not that he’s experiencing anything like that) he is sure that feeling slight fear the first time on a motorcycle is entirely natural. Besides, once he gets past the initial worries about Keith crashing and killing both of them, it’s actually pretty fun. He guesses he can understand why Keith would choose a motorbike over a car.

Lance tries to pretend he isn’t disappointed when the pull over in the driveway.

“You can let go of me now.” Lance can hear amusement in Keith’s voice along with something else that he can’t quite place. Probably annoyance.

Disentangling himself from the other man, he stretches, and almost falls off of the back of the bike in the process. Boy he’s glad keith didn’t see that. Lance waits for Keith to dismount, then pulls off his helmet and attempts to climb off his bike. Attempts. His foot catches and the next thing he knows the ground id significantly closer than it had been two seconds ago. On one hand he hasn’t hit the floor, which is good, but on the other hand…

“Why do we always end up like this?” Lance asks, looking up at Keith.

“Do you want me to drop you again?”

Lance mutters some things never to be repeated in school hours, and gets up. Thankfully, Keith doesn’t follow through on his threat to drop him.

“Lead the way.” Lance gestures to the front door, trying to ignore the feeling of travel sickness blooming in his stomach.

 

Keith really wishes that he had allocated some time to tidy before having Lance over. It isn’t that the house us especially messy, but it definitely isn’t at it’s best. There are piles of books lying around, and some laundry that Keith isn’t entirely sure if is clean or dirty. He tries to shove some of it inconspicuously under furnature with his feet as he walks by, hoping that lance won’t notice.

Lance however probably could have had a brick dropped on his foot without him noticing, he was so caught up in his own thoughts. Most of which consisted of the fact that he was in _Keith Kogane’s house._

Keith coughs awkwardly and bites his lip. “Sooo, what happens now?” _God he needs to think before he opens his mouth._

“Well, I believe I came over so that we could watch some documentaries,” Lance says, grinning slightly.

Keith scowls, but fixes up the sofa and goes to kneel in front of the DVD player.

“So I have a few on DVD-“ Lance snorts and Keith immediately regrets admitting this –“but there are also a few on Netflix, some I’ve already seen, and a few I’ve been intending to see if you want to watch one of those instead…?”

“Hmmm…” Lance looks as though he’s putting thought into his decision, but he could be pretending. “Let’s watch something that’s new to both of us.”

Keith shrugs. “Sounds good to me.” He flops down on the sofa next to Lance and grabs the remote.

“Where do you even find alien conspiracy theories anyway?” Lance asks as Keith opens Netflix.

“The documentaries section,” Keith deadpans.

“You’re kidding right?”

“Nope. See?” Keith clicks onto one of the movies. “Conspiracy theory: the moon landing was faked.”

“That’s a terrible name for a documentary.”

“It’s straight forward and to the point.”

“Still a terrible name.”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty bad name.”

Keith grins at Lance, and Lance grins back at him. For a moment it almost feels like not-hatred. Lance goes red, presumably remembering that they hate each other, and turns back to the T.V..

After a few moments of awkward silence Lance coughs then giggles. Keith looks at him with one eyebrow raised.

“Alien Autopsy?” he laughs. Keith rolls his eyes.

“What about alien mummies?” He asks, flicking onto a different movie with a slight grin.

“UNACKNOWLEDGED: AN EXPOSE OF THE WORLDS GREATEST SECRET!” Lance reads out grandly, with a hand waving in the air like a composer at a rock ‘n’ roll concert.

“COWSPIRACY: THE SUSTAINABILITY SECRET!” Keith joins in, and Lance rolls onto the floor, gasping for air.

“That one’s definitely going on the list,” he finally manages to hoke out,

“I’m beginning to see why Shiro wanted to have a separate Netflix account to mine.” Keith comments dryly.

Lance breaks down into hysteric giggles all over again and Keith even manages a slight snort, which for keith is akin to him rolling on the floor in hysterics. It feels like a win, but Lance isn’t sure why.

“So do you want to actually pick one to watch?” Keith eventually asks, when Lance has finally gotten all of the giggles out of his system.

“Yeah, let’s see if this moon landing one is as terrible as the title promises.

“You know, it’s not the worst title I’ve ever seen.”

Lance raises an eyebrow, but Keith just shakes his head in a way that suggests that he has seen some shit. Keith scrolls up to the film, and as soon as it starts Lance breaks back down into hysterics again. Keitn pauses it and sighs.

“Is this going to be a regular thing?”

“It just- it- it has-“ whatever Lance is trying to say is lost in his laughter, andKeith watches with a smile until Lance is ready to talk again. “The following program deals with a controversial subject. The theories expresses are not the only possible interpretation. Viewers are invited to make a jidgement based on all available information” As soon as Lance finishes reading out the disclaimer in screen he breaks back down into giggles again. Meanwhile Keith tries not to have an attack because god damn it he should not be allowed to be that cute. This is like a criminal offence or something. “Do they all have that disclaimer?” Lance eventually manages to choke out.

“Yeah, something along those lines. It’s pretty standard.”

“This is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen all day.”

“Can I start the documentary yet?”

Lance waves his hand in a gesture of ‘sure go ahead’ while he calms down. Keith can’t help but notice that in the last few minutes the gap between them on the sofa has gotten incredibly smaller, and he isn’t entirely sure how he feels about that. So far he seems to be feeling incredibly red in the face, but he tries to ignore that, and just hopes that lance won’t notice. At the moment however he seems to be much too occupied with the documentary.

“What is it this time?” Keith asks as Lance giggles next to him. He doesn’t bother to pause it.

“Should I also be expecting such excellent background music from all of them?” Lance asks, wiping away a tear.

“nope, just this one,” Keith smiles.

“Damn, because it’s really the highlight.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll find other things to mock.”

“I’ll try my best.”

 

 

 

“The person narrating this one seems awfully biased,” Lance comments ten or so minutes in.

“Yeah, but to be fair, the people that are supposed to be arguing against them are hardly doing a stellar job at proving them wrong.”

“Or maybe they did, and they edites it out to support their point.”

“That guy just straight up said that they couldn’t explain those photos. I doubt they had to edit anything out to make their point seem any weaker.”

“But isn’t it in the spirit of conspiracy theories day to be looking for everything that they don’t want us to see?”

“Conspiracy theories day?”

“What else would you call this?”

Keith rolls his eyes but doesn’t answer.

“My point still stands that if these documetnaries are picking holes in things, they should expect to have holes picked in them,” Lance continues. “And if they want to prove that they didn’t edit anything then I demand to see the full unedited interviews with these people.”

“You know, you almost sound like you’re saying exactly what we’re saying about the aliens.”

“I think you just need to accept that the government isn’t hiding aliens from us.”

“I think that I’ve got an entire day to convince you otherwise.”

 

 

As the documentary ends Keith gives Lance an expectant look. “So?”

“I still don’t think that the moon landing was faked.”

“But?”

“I’ll admit that it came up with some pretty compelling points.”

Keith smiles victoriously.

“BUT-“ Lance continues “-I still maintain that the person who made that was biases and therefore it did not represent all of the facts equally.”

“So you want to know what they’re hiding from you?”

“Keith this isn’t a conspiracy theory!”

“You just don’t believe that they’re telling you everything?”

“Precisely.”

“Welcome to the conspiracy theorist squad.”

“I’m not a conspiracy theorist Keith!”

“I think I have a whole day to convince you otherwise.”

Lance pouts at Keith, but Keith just grins back.

“Whatever,” Lance rolls his eyes. “Can I get a drink?”

“No, my plan was to make you die of dehydration.”

“is it even possible for you to reply without sarcasm?”

“Have you tried saying something intelligent yet?”

“Does asking if you have any apple juice count?”

“Of course not! What kind of heathen drinks apple juice?”

“The kind that is allergic to oranges.”

“I’ve seen you eat truckloads of orange ice lollies in hot weather.”

“Why do you know these things?”

“Did you know that they’re only like ninety percent orange juice?”

Lance gives keith an incredulous look. “You’re making that up.”

“Nope, see for yourself.” Keith helps himself to an ice lolly from his freezer and passes the empty packet over to Lance. Keith can see the exact moment that he finds the ingredients and his soul shatters.

“You realise I now have to consume these all out of grief,” He says finally.

“You can have one.”

“Three.”

“none.”

“Two.”

“Buy your own.”

“Fine, I’ll only have one,” Lance groans exaggeratedly.

“Too late,” Keith smirks, taking out another ice lolly. “This is officially a bring your own ice lollies occasion.”

“What? No fair!” Lance gapes at Keith, who just smiles innocently.

“Fine, I’ll get one myself,” Lance finally huffs.

Keith frowns. He hadn’t expected Lance to give in that easily. Too late he sees the sly grin as Lance lunges towards him and tries to snatch the lolly out of his hands.

Keith dodges to the side just in time, barely avoiding a chair sat in his path. Lance however is not so skilled and knocks the chair down as he careens towards Keith. Keith hears a yelp of pain followed by a torrent of words he feels like he should be thankful that he can’t hear properly. He grins as Lance gets up.

“Are you alright? He asks sweetly.

“Butthead.”

“Would you like something cold for your injury? I hear ice helps.”

“would you like to shove your ice-“ Lance is interrupted by the sound of the front door opening, and they both look up like a pair of deer caught in headlights.

“Hey Keith, I forgot my laptop. I’ll be gone in… Shiro walks into the kitchen and surveys the scene. “Lance, what are you doing here? and why have you two attacked my favourite chair?”

“It was Keith-“

“It was Lance-“

They both turn and glower at each other.

Shiro sighs and picks up the chair, giving Keith a disappointed stare. Lance grins triumphantly.

 “I didn’t do anything!” Keith objects, throwing his hands into the air.

“Can I have an ice lolly?”

“Umm, sure, they’re in the freezer…”

Lance smirks at Keith and skips over to the freezer.

Keith folds his arms and stands stubbornly, glowering at both of them.

“I’ll leave you guys to… whatever this is,” Shiro says eventually. He backs out of the kitchen after throwing Keith a look to say that they would definitely be talking about this later.

Keith wonders if the ground could just open up and swallow him whole.

As soon as Shiro leaves Lance turns to Keith and sticks his tongue out. “Sucker.”

“Moron,” Keith shoots back weakly.

Lance grin just gets bigger.

“So are we officially just hiding in the kitchen until Shiro leaves?” Lance asks eventually.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Keith confirms. “Want anything to eat while we do?

"Got any popcorn?”

Keith frowns at Lance.

“Hey, if we’re watching stuff we gotta have popcorn. I already got through this long without it, I don’t want to go another forty minutes popcornless!”

Keith sighs and pulls a bag of kernels out of a cupvoard.

“Woah, do you have a popcorn maker?”

“No? I have a saucepan.”

“Why am I not surprised that that’s how you make popcorn?”

“Shut up, some of us are capable of making basic things how they were originally intended to be made.”

“Yes, when the ancients were making popcorn long ago, they decreed that it should only ever be made with the sauce pan, no matter how archaic-“

“Shut up.”

Ten minutes later Shiro has left, and they are once more curled back up on the sofa. This time however they have a giant bowl of popcorn and a tray of drinks complete with a jug of water sat next to them.

“So what should we watch next Mr. Conspiracy-Expert?”

“I know that you mean for it to sound insulting, but I honestly don’t see anything wrong with that title,” Keith tells Lance without looking at him.

“I am not surprised.”

“Anyway, I haven’t seen any of these, I don’t know what one’s are good or not.”

“Really? You expect me to believe that by now you can’t tell which documentaries are good or not just by the cover and description? I may have to take your title away.”

“Just shut up and choose a movie Lance.”

“What about… “Alien Mummies”?” Keith doesn’t have to look to know that Lance is using air quotes.

“Really? That’s what you’re going with?”

“Oh shut up Mr. I-Wont-Give-You-Any-Input-On-Which-Ones-I-Think-Are-Good-Despite-Being-The-Resident-Expert-But-Will-Judge-Any-And-All-Choices-You-Make.”

“That feels like too long a title to be practical.”

“ _You_ feel like too long of a title to be practical.”

“That makes no sense.”

“ _You_ make no sense.”

“Lance is a butthead.”

“ _Your_ Lance is a butthead!” Lance takes a moment to process what just happened. “Wait, I mean-“

“Nope!” Too late!” Keith hits a button on his phone.

“Your Lance is a butthead! your Lance is a butthead! your lance-“ the phone repeats on loop.

“Hey! That’s not fair!”

“You know, I bet I could edit it down to just you saying ‘Lance is a butthead’.”

Lance lunges for the phone, but keith holds it out of his reach. As they battle for the phone, Lance attempts to climb Keith to get it, and in the process knocks over the entire jug of water.

“Fuck!”      

“Quiznack!”

Keith glowers up at lance sat on top of him, both of them drenched. The phone however managed to survive. Lance makes a last lunge at it, but Keith rolls over and tosses Lance onto the floor, where he lands with a yelp of pain.

"Ugh, you're the worst!" Lance groans.

"You're just bitter because you lost that fight."

"I did not lose!"

"Says the person lying on the floor drenched in water."

"You are just as soaked as I am!"

"Yeah, but I have the phone."

"For now."

"And, oops! My thumb slipped and I've saved the file to the cloud."

"Yeah? Yell I know... I know a master hacker!"

"You and me both know Pidge would never help you with this."

"Who says I was talking about Pidge?"

Keith raises an eyebrow.

"Oh shut up."

"Get up before you ruin my floors Lance."

"Where am I supposed to go? I'm still soaked if you don't remember."

"And whose fault is that?"

"Yours."

"Say whatever you have to to make yourself feel better."

"okay, normally I'm all for this blame game, but we put so many ice cubes into that water, and after the kitchen incident I am unreasonably paranoid that shiro will walk in any moment now."

"ugh, yeah. I definitely don't want shiro to see this."

"Oh is that so?" Lance grins wickedly and grabs his phone before Keith has the chance to tackle him for it.

"Don't you dare show that photo to anyone."

"Delete the recording."

"No"

"Then I'm keeping the photo." Lance grins at Keith, then bolts for the bathroom before he can catch him. a moment later he hears Keith pounding on the door.

"LANCE!"

"I cant hear you!" Lance sings as he slides the bolt into place.

"I know you can!"

"Sorry! these doors are just so thick!"

"I know how paper thin these walls are lance!"

"Oh no, looks. like I ACCIDENTALLY saved the photo to my google drive!"

the pounding at the door stops

"I'll agree not to show anyone the recording if you don't show anyone the photo."

Lance unlocks the door and sticks his hand out. "Pinky promise on it?"

"Fine."

Lance finally steps out of the bathroom and Keith coughs awkwardly.

"We should probably get changed out of these clothes." Keith says eventually, his face flushing.

"Got any clothes that'll fit me shorty?"

"I will just kick you out of my house and let you walk home like that."

"No you wouldn't, I'd tell shiro."

Keith mutters something along the lines of "I could take him," but nonetheless leads lance to his room.

"I've got this t-shirt that's too big for me because it was the only size they-"

"OH. My. _god_." Lance interrupts. Keith turns to see what Lance is looking at. _fuck_.

"Can we ignore that?" Keith mutters, kicking the floor with his toes.

"I don't think I can ever forget the true beauty of this," Lance says, clutching one hand over his heart.

"Ugh, just take these and get dressed," Keith says, shoving clothes at him. "There are towels in the bathroom."

Lance doesn't move.

"LAnce"

"Just give me a moment, this is amazing."

Keith flushes.

"I will drag you out of this room by force."

"It's just that I never expected that I would ever get the honour of seeing this in person."

"This isn't that big a deal Lance"

"An entire wall dedicated to discovering the truths that the government is hiding from us." Lance sounds like he's choking up, and wipes away (what Keith hopes is) a fake tear.

"Please leave."

"But Keith,"

"You have three seconds."

"How else am I supposed to learn the real truth of the Kennedy assassination?"

"Three."

"Or what the aliens want from us?"

"Two."

"Who else will I find who has so concisely documented everything that the government is hiding from us?"

"One."

"If you will not share-" Lance is cut off as Keith grabs the collar of his jacket and starts pulling him out of the room.

"Hey, come on! I'm going, I'm going!" Lance walks reluctantly out of the room and casts one last longing glance at Keith's wall as he does so. Keith glowers.

"You know where the bathroom is."

Lance trudges down the hall, dripping water behind him. Keith meanwhile is sure that if his face gets any hotter he isn't going to need a towel to dry off.

 

 

When Keith comes downstairs a few minutes later, Lance is already lounging around on the floor, presumably because the sofa still has water dripping off of it. he has however draped a towel across the floor in front of the sofa to catch the drips.

"I tried to dry some of it up," Lance explains as Keith observes the mess. "But, um... there was a lot. the popcorn made it though," Lance offers the bowl to Keith, who takes a few with a sigh.

"I'll dry it out later, for now we can just get some blankets and lie on the floor."

"want help with that?"

"Nah, I got it."

Keith trudges back upstairs, this time to the airing cupboard, and grabs as many blankets and pillows as he can carry. He feels unstable, but at least if he falls it'll be a soft landing. Miraculously he manages to get down the stairs without dying, and he dumps the pile on top of Lance.

"Hey!" Lance shouts, but his objections are muffled through what feels like ten feet of blankets. after a few seconds of wrestling with the blankets, Lance’s head pops out from underneath the pile. Keith laughs at him. Lance throws a pillow at his head and mutters curses as he struggles the rest of himself free.

Keith gives Lance a once over, which may have turned into a twice or thrice over. Lance is wearing Keith's "the truth is out there" hoodie with a pair of tracksuit bottoms, and his hair is messed up from where Keith dumped the pile of clothes on him, in a way that really shouldn't be so attractive. His arms are folded and he's pouting slightly, giving Keith a disapproving look.

That was unnecessary," he mutters.

"I don't know, I'm pretty happy now." Keith grins, trying not to laugh.

"Ugh, you're the worst!" Lance rolls over on the blankets, disentangling himself from the last of them.

"You're hogging all the blankets, move over."

"Oh I wonder why that is," Lance mutters, but moves over nonetheless.

Keith settles in next to lance and snatches the popcorn away. it seems to have survived the blanket attack.

"Hey! Give me my popcorn back!" Lance tries to reach over Keith to get to the popcorn, but he just holds it farther away.

"I think you mean OUR popcorn," Keith titters.

"No, I mean MINE!" Lance makes a last desperate lunge for the popcorn, but Keith moves it out of the way easily, and Lance just ends up lying on top of Keith.

"Get off of me Lance."

"Not until you give me the popcorn."

"If we weren't already lying on the floor I would totally drop you again."

"I'm sure you would, now do you concede?"

"This is actually pretty comfy you know."

"OH yeah? what if I do THIS?"

"Still comfortable."

"Or THIS!"

"Lance, whatever THIS is, isn't going to work."

"Ugh, I hate you."

"you keep saying that, someday I'm going to think you mean it."

"Good."

"I'll give you the popcorn if you say pretty please."

"What is this, kindergarten?"

"Only as long as you act like it is."

"I'm not the one stealing other peoples popcorn."

"I'm not the one that never learnt how to share."

"Says the one!"

"Wow, you are truly at the height of your witticisms today."

"Have you ever considered being less of an ass?"

"Ah, but if I couldn't annoy you what else would I do with my spare time."

"Get a job."

"Lance, may I remind you that we work together?"

"Ugh, please don't"

"You're the one who wanted to do this."

"Sometimes I feel like you don't enjoy our Saturday afternoons together."

"This is the first time we have ever done this."

"well of course it is with that attitude."

"What does that even mean?"

"It means that you're a butthead."

A moment later a pillow smacks Lance in the face.

"Hey!" Lance grabs a pillow and smacks Keith in return while Keith laughs and holds his hands up in defence.

"Stop that!" Keith objects. he rolls out of the way and grabs a new pillow, hitting Lance in return. Lance drops the pillow and grabs a blanket. He tackles Keith, taking him by surprise and pinning him underneath himself again; this time with a blanket between them.

"Do you concede yet?" Lance taunts. He hears a muffled shout from under the blanket that it's probably better that he can’t understand. Lance just laughs as Keith struggles under his weight.

A minute or so later lance hears Keith shout something that sounds like mercy, and he pulls the blanket off of him. Keith sits up and gasps for air then immediately thwacks lance with a pillow.

"Hey! you called mercy!" Lance objects as he fends off Keith's attack.

""Yeah, and now you can have some popcorn," Keith shoves the popcorn bowl towards lance.

"Man, this popcorn bowl is indestructible," lance mutters. "It's survived what? three attacks now?"

"Yeah, it's almost like you can tell where our priorities lie."

"My priorities are the straightest thing about me Keith, what can I tell you," Lance sighs dramatically. Keith rolls his eyes but stores away the comment in the back of his mind.

"Yeah, your teaching policies are definitely crooked," Keith eventually mutters.

"Hey!" Lance objects. "That isn't true!"

Keith snorts disbelievingly, and Lance glowers at him. "So are we getting back to this thing or what?" Keith asks, gesturing at the TV.

"Ugh, yeah," Lance grumbles. He rolls into a sitting up position and starts neatening up the blankets somewhat, which were not nearly as successful at surviving their mini-war as the popcorn. "So after this do I get like, an honorary conspiradork badge?" Lance asks as Keith begins to flick through their list again.

"I keep telling you, that isn't a word."

"and I keep telling you that you need to loosen up a bit, " Lance rolls his eyes and begins stretching. "Being so uptight is bad for your flexibility."

Keith intends to give lance a sarcastic look, but is caught off guard by the fact that lance has rolled onto his back and is kicking his legs in the air. The jumper that Keith leant him has been pushed up and Keith can see far more skin than he is okay with. He can feel his face flushing a deep crimson.

“Come on,” he eventually manages to get out. “We have documentaries to watch.”

Lance rolls forwards and scooches closer to keith with a cheeky grin.

“Then put them on Mr Conspiracy expert.”

Keith feels his heart going a few beats quicker, but stubbornly ignores it.

“Whatever.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah, as I said there will be a follow up and im not even going to try and promise a release date, BUT my gcses do end in a month, and I have like most the summer (I'm also doing ncs, I am hype.) and I'll try and get something out for this summer. hopefully I'll have more time once I'm finished with my gcses.  
> anyhows, this is where I briefly scream at you about things going on in my life because I MET FRANK TURNER AND THEN SAW HIM LIVE HOLY SHIT IT WAS AMAZING  
> and in the next chapter you will be seeing more bad decisions from the disaster gays, alcohol and just some really poorly thought out plans. you'll see what I mean  
> if you liked this chapter/ would like to see more, then feel free to send a sacrifice to the greek gods, a child or just some marshmallows will do, or alternatively if you don't have access to a campfire or other suitable sacrificial pyre then you can also just leave me a comment :)  
> and hey,  
> you're beautiful  
> \- themaagoo signing out


	5. aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey im sorry this chapter is shorter than usual but I have had so much going on lately, I finish NCS on Friday (I can't watch it when it drops and I am sad) so I'll try to get more done then but no promises and then in September I start school again so who knows what will happen then anyway, please check out the end chapter notes I have a thing I want to tell ya'll about. hope you enjoy this :)

“Hey Lance, are you awake?”

“No. You?”

“Not really.”

Ugh, what time is it anyway?” Lance groans and stretches out, almost elbowing Keith in the face in the process

“Ouch,” Keith mumbles half-heartedly as he fumbles about for his phone. “Fuck.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s like ten thirty.”

Lance groans and rolls off of Keith, whom he seems to have manages to have ended up lying practically on top of. He can’t remember exactly how that happened. “Did we fall asleep or something?”

“I feel like if I had managed to get any sleep I wouldn’t be this tired,” Keith grumbles in response as he struggles to sit up.

“Are you crying?”

“No my eyes just tear up sometimes when I sle-“ Keith stops mid sentence and wipes a tear out of his eye.  “Oh fuck we did fall asleep didn’t we?”

Lance laughs and tries to stand up, but fails at the untangling-feet-from-the-duvet stage. Keith laughs, but Lance can’t find any malice in it. It was just fun. Maybe it was how tired he was, but he can’t help but join in, and soon they’re both giggling uncontrollably on the floor for no reason.

“Hey Keith,” Lance eventually manages to gasp out. “What’s happening with me getting home?”

“Aww heck, I hadn’t really thought about that.” Keith sobers up somewhat and sits up. “I mean I had, I was gonna give you a ride home but…”

“It’s ten thirty, we’re both exhausted, and it now feels like a terrible idea?”

“Something along those lines.”

“I could take the bus home.”

“Are you kidding me, Shiro would kill me if I let you do that half asleep at this time of night.”

“Ugh, then what do you suggest? A fucking sleepover?”

“It’s not as bad an idea as you make it sound you know.”

Lance snorts.

“What?”

“Sorry, I’m just getting some serious flashbacks to eighth grade.”

“Got any better ideas wise guy?”

“No, no, I’m down for this. Think we can make any more popcorn?”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Hey, if we’re doing this, we are doing this right.”

“Wanna get some cards, maybe a few cocktails, play truth or dares too?”

“It’s not as bad an idea as you make it sound you know.”

Keith laughs, pushing the blanket off of him and standing up to stretch.

“Also, cocktails? What the hell kind of eighth grader were you?”

“One with access to the wine cupboard.”

“I genuinely cannot tell if you’re joking or not.”

“Come with me and find out.”

“Also, I’m really more of a martini person than a cocktail.”

Keith rolls his eyes and drags Lance to his feet by his wrist. The other man grumbles for a bit but follows Keith to the kitchen.

Keith pulls out an energy drink from the fridge, downs half of it in one go and offers Lance the rest. With a shrug to himself he accepts and chugs it.

“Ugh,” he groans. “I look forward to that kicking in.”

“Come on.” Keith goes around the kitchen, grabbing what they need. “Let’s go upstairs

“To the conspiracy wall?” Lance asks hopefully. Keith freezes. _Shit_.

“Ugh, never mind, let’s stay downstairs.”

“Pleeeeeaaase,” Lance begs. “I promise I won’t make fun.”

“Oh gee, you won’t insult me? How nice of you,” Keith grumbles, his voice flat. Lance frowns.

“You know I’m only kidding right? I really do think the wall is cool.” Keith sighs. “Fine. But you’re sleeping on the floor.”

 

 

“Okay, so you say a call truth or dare, and if I do it, you take a shot, if I don’t then I take a shot,” Keith explains, picking up a coin. “Call it in the air.”

“Heads.”

“You start.”

“Okay,” Lance pours out a shot of vodka “What is the most embarrassing thing to happen to you in high school?”

Keith groans. “Oh god, I think I’ve repressed high school.”

”Answer the question or take the shot Keith.” Lance grins at him.

“Okay, okay, okay.” Keith rolls his eyes and pushes the shot towards Lance. “So one time I was in class, and I had this teacher who I think thought I was a drug dealer? Anyway, he never let me leave class. Anyway, there was this cute guy who sat next to me, and one time I was feeling ill and he was arguing with the teacher for me to let me leave, and I uh… I threw up on him.”

Lance breaks down in fits of laughter and Keith hits him over the head with a pillow. “Hey, remember I know all of your embarrassing moments too.” After a few more moments of hysteric giggling, Lance eventually quietens down.

“Okay, dare,” Lance says, wasting no time as he downs his shot.”

“Coward,” Keith mutters, but pours out a shot. “On Monday wear crocs to school.” Lance lets out a theatrical gasp, but Keith continues before he objects any further. “ _And_ , if anyone asks, you have to say it’s because you like them.”

“Never,” Lance whispers.

“Tesco value gin it is then, wimp.”

“Fine, I’ll do it. Now take your Tesco value shot asshole.”

Keith takes the shot, and dear god it is _awful_. Despite his best efforts to keep a neutral expression he blanches and Lance grins wickedly.

“Dare,” Keith croaks out, recovering from the shot.

“You have to wear a tux to school on Monday.”

Keith nods and pushes the shot towards Lance. Lance takes it and gags halfway through. Eventually he manages to swallow it, and he chokes out a sentence.

“Can we agree, no more Tesco value?” he asks, pushing the shot glass away from him. Keith nods vigorously, pouring a shot of schnapps instead.

“I Feel like washing my mouth out with gasoline would be better,” Keith says.

As the game passes Lake’s attention wanders. He blames it on the alcohol; the drinks making his attention wander from Keith eyes, to Keith’s mouth, to Keith’s chest, to- he had to remind himself that Keith was still the worst. But he wasn’t being the worst right now; right now he seemed like a pretty chill dude. Maybe even a friend.

“Who,” Keith slurs, “Is the hottest teacher?”

“ _That_ ,” Lance says as he takes a shot. “Feels like a trap.”

“Ugh, fine. “Truth.”

“Have you ever been arrested?” Lance leans in unnecessarily close as he asks, his forehead almost touching Keith's

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“That isn't the question,” Keith replies smugly, raising the glass to Lance.

Lance groans and rolls back, downing the shot. “Truth.”

“What’s your most useless skill?”

“I can play rainbow road backwards,” Lance answers without hesitation.

Keith snorts, “I don't believe you.”

“I'll prove it.” Lance replies smugly. “And if I manage you have to tell me why you got arrested.”

“If you don't you have to take the shot.”

“Deal.”

As it turns out, Lance _can_ play rainbow road backwards, much to Keith’s dismay.

He has difficulty getting too upset over it though, mostly because Lance is really _really_ cute when he's excited. And he has a victory dance. Which Keith may or may not have caught on camera.

Lance turns to Keith expectantly, arms folded.

“When I was eighteen I broke into an alien crash site.” Keith says.

“And?” Lance says expectantly.

“And I got caught,” Keith replies, eyebrows furrowed.

“No! What did you find?”

Keith shrugs. “Nothing, they dragged me out before I could see anything.”

Lance groans. “That sucks! You should have at least have seen what it was!”

“Trust me, that was the least of my worries. Shiro was _pissed_.”

Lance laughs so hard he rolls over forwards

“Shiro did not see it with the same humour,” Keith sighs. “Anyway, it's my turn. Dare.”

“Dare you to watch emo the musical with me.”

“That’s not a real dare Lance.”

“Is that you backing out?”

“No.”

\----

 

Watching a musical was a terrible idea. Both of them fell asleep. Again. Which was how Shiro found them, passed out on the floor with two and a half empty bottles of alcohol.

“You know,” Lance says after Shiro has finished telling them off. “You didn't technically complete your dare.”

“If you're about to tell me that I have to take a shot you're going to get smacked.”

“Nah,” Lance says with a wink. “But you do have to rewatch it with me.”

“Your house this time.”

“Deal.”

Shiro walks back into the room at this moment, just hanging up the phone to somebody

“Matt's going to drive you back home Lance,” he tells him with the same authority he uses on school kids.

“Keithy boy here can drive me home,” Lance objects, slinging one arm around Keith.

“Not while you're both hung-over he can't.” Shiro sighs and looks at Keith. “I have to go take care of something else, Matt will be here in fifteen minutes, try not to break anything in if he meantime.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “I'm not five Shiro.”

Shiro gives Keith yet another disapproving look, but says nothing else as he grabs his coat and leaves the room.

“Do you think he's mad at us?” Lance whispers as they hear the front door slam.

“He’ll get over it in a few hours,” Keith takes a seat facing Lance. “Wanna play another game while we wait for Matt?”

“I could kick your ass at Mario karts,” Lance suggests.

“You’re on.”

 

 

“So remind me again why you’re here?” Matt asks, giving Lance a confused look.

“Conspiracy theory night,” Lance says.

“Remind me again why you brought Pidge?” Keith gives Pidge, who is not very discretely recording them, a dirty look.

“Yeah!” Lance backs Keith up, slinging one arm around him. “We see the gremlin enough at school!”

“Come on guys, don’t be mean,” Matt scolds. “Pidge didn’t want to be left alone.”

Pidge sticks out her tongue at them from behind her camera.

Matt sighs and sits down on the sofa next to them. “Gimme a remote guys, I’m jumping in.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be driving me home?” Lance asks.

“You can wait.”

“Pass him the remote Lance, I’m gonna kick his ass!”

“Anything for you sweetheart,” Lance gives Keith a wink.

Keith blushes as he adds Matt into the game.

Several rounds into the game Matt looks down at his phone and curses.

“Hey, small ears!” Lance shouts, covering Pidge’s head with his hands.

“Fuck off,” Pidge says as she prises Lance’s hands off of her.

“We have to leave now,” Matt says, pausing the game. “Shiro comes back in ten minutes.”

“Shit,” Keith agrees.

“But I’m about to win!” Lance complains.

“I’m bored,” Pidge says.

“Come on Lance.” Matt gets up and swings his bag over his shoulder, jangling his keys.

“Fine, fine, I’m coming.” Lance sighs and joins Matt at the door. “See ya tomorrow Keith,” Lance says with a smile

Keith grins dumbly back at the other man. “See ya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so first things first lets get the formalities out of the way: sorry this chapter was so short, I will have the next one up as soon as I can (hopefully before september) although I might start doing shorter chapters to make it more manageable but to keep me posting more regularly, what do you guys think? same content, just spaced out more possibly more edited.  
> okay, now exciting stuff. so I may not be as good at executing it as I could be, especially when it comes to fanfic but I am pretty good at the technical side of writing and I really enjoy talking about it so... I started a youtube channel! yay! I'm pretty nervous about it but I'm enjoying it so far, however I haven't managed to get myself out there much so it would mean a load to me if you would check it out, I'll drop a link down below. I try to post weekly (my coming up one is late due to technical issues, but on it's way) so yeah, even if this isn't really your thing it would be seriously awesome if you could check it out, maybe tell other people.  
> so yeah, that's about it, here is the link:  
> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2zZgDiC4n1gRJ5Y-1mGevg  
> if you liked this chapter and are new here, leave a kudos  
> if you have anything to say/ want to confess your undying love/ would like to sacrifice some rainbow belts to the gods then leave a comment down below and hit subscribe if you want to get new chapter updates  
> also would anyone like to beta for me? I feel nervous posting these with just me anyway,  
> see ya next week  
> and hey, you're beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it, and I probably should have mentioned this at the beginning but I'm only aiming for monthly updates, if you read my Pokemon one however you will realise that thats pretty good for me. you'll also realise that this one is much better, my writing has improved vastly recently, might be all those pics I'm writing. ANYWAY remember that feedback I said I craved? please fuel me, leave kudos or comment, both are appreciated an loved. I'm also going to draw some art to go along with this story, idk when, but it'll be on my Insta @themaagoodraws if you want to check that out  
> and hey,  
> you're beautifull


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